The Big Read: Cyril on a precarious path

For a deputy president, Cyril Ramaphosa has been pretty busy recently.

With the exception of Thabo Mbeki between 2006 and 2009, deputy presidents have generally played a low-key, largely ceremonial role in our politics.

The constitution does not say much about the functions and responsibilities of the country's second-in-command. It merely states that the deputy president "must assist the president in the execution of the functions of government".

This leaves it up to the head of state to decide what functions and responsibilities he would like to delegate to his deputy.

When Jacob Zuma was Mbeki's deputy, between late 1999 and mid-2005, we saw very little of the deputy president. Besides the traditional task of acting as leader of government business in parliament, Zuma had a very limited role to play locally - having been assigned by Mbeki to focus on peace talks in Burundi and on the local Moral Regeneration Movement.

In the three years that she held the position, Zuma's successor - Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka - had more local responsibilities. But they were mostly limited to economic development issues.

The same can be said of Baleka Mbete's short stint as deputy president in President Kgalema Motlanthe's cabinet. She was so invisible that one doubts if many people even remember that she once held the position.

Many in the ANC thought we would see the deputy presidency play a more active role when Zuma picked Motlanthe as his number two following the 2009 general elections. It seemed to start in that vein, but Motlanthe steadily started disappearing from the public space in late 2010, amid claims of tensions caused by talk that he was preparing to challenge for the ANC presidency in 2012.

He did stand against Zuma - and lost. Although Zuma kept him in office for another two years after the ANC conference, his was a diminished role.

Enter Ramaphosa, the man the smart money is on to succeed Zuma as president.

The former trade-unionist-turned-politician-turned-business-mogul-turned-politician-again seems to be playing the game extremely carefully.

Since becoming deputy president, he has been careful not to step on anyone's toes by doing or saying anything that would suggest he is already jockeying to be Zuma's replacement.

On any public platform he makes a point of speaking highly of the president and of "President Zuma's government". Those who work with him in the government say he always lets it be known that he has a good relationship with the president.

That is not to say he is not his own man.

But Ramaphosa appears to have realised that, if he is to become the ANC and national president, he had better gain the trust and the confidence of the incumbent's supporters while quietly building his own power base.

He has acted as Zuma's pointsman in the ongoing peace talks in Sri Lanka and South Sudan. He has also been the Southern African Development Community's mediator in Lesotho.

Important as these tasks might be, the school of thought that says Ramaphosa is not Zuma's preferred successor see such assignments as a ploy to keep him as far away from local politics as possible.

This school of thought reckons that, by keeping Ramaphosa busy in Lesotho, South Sudan and Sri Lanka, the president would have ensured that he has no campaign to speak of come the ANC's next elective conference in 2017.

But there is a different perspective. One that says that with these missions Zuma seeks to boost Ramaphosa's international profile as part of the plan to have him take over in due course.

If Ramaphosa's mediation endeavours succeed, those who hold this view argue, he would boost his chances of success in an election campaign.

In Lesotho, he seems to be making impressive progress. The political instability caused by a failed military coup in the mountain kingdom has subsided since Ramaphosa became involved.

The three army and police generals who were said to be at the centre of much of the instability have now agreed to be sent abroad - at least until after Ramaphosa has led Lesotho's competing political parties to fresh national elections in February next year.

But on the home front Ramaphosa does not seem to be having quite as much success.

His attempt to broker a deal to end the stalemate between the ANC and opposition parties in parliament fell flat once again on Monday.

It failed not only because most opposition parties now believe that the only way for them to attract more voters in future elections is to be cantankerous in the National Assembly, but also because of opposition from within Ramaphosa's own party.

Though most ANC MPs who were unhappy with the deal done with opposition leaders last week said their disagreement originated from a concern that the deputy president's initiative had the potential of u surping National Assembly speaker Mbete's powers, others predictably suggested it all had to do with the ANC's succession debate.

After all, Ramaphosa and Mbete are both said to be in the running to replace Zuma.

A rejection of the "peace" pact with the opposition is therefore interpreted as attempted sabotage of his presidential ambitions and an endorsement of Mbete and her seemingly hardline approach to dealing with the opposition.

But it is possible that we are all reading too much into this, that the ANC MPs' rejection of Ramaphosa's efforts has more to do with a simple desire to see the Economic Freedom Fighters punished for being "disrespectful" towards Zuma and parliament than it has to do with any rejection of a Ramaphosa presidency.

Things should become clearer in the new year as the ANC informally begins the process of considering life after Zuma.

The governing party will hold its national general council in Johannesburg next winter.

Although the gathering serves as some kind of a mid-term policy review, it normally provides a fairly accurate indication of who is likely to emerge as top dog.

Expect Ramaphosa to be even busier next year.