It's not like Ramaphosa has done nothing. The top structures of SARS, the NPA, Hawks and state entities have been beefed up with more honest and capable individuals, several commissions of inquiry have exposed evidence of state capture and the relationship with the business sector, the international community and investors is much improved. There is indeed a new national ethos.
Ramaphosa's famed “long game”, the slow game of chess he plays with his opponents, was successful in getting rid of Jacob Zuma and other characters such as Malusi Gigaba, and in disarming the fightback rebellion that was threatening to derail the country early last year, but the crisis was just too big and urgent for such a slow process.
It is important to keep in mind that if it weren't for the catastrophic collapse and mountains of debt of state entities such as Eskom, the economy would have been in a much better state and the national mood would have been much brighter, which would have strengthened Ramaphosa's hand.
And remember, there was also the sudden shock of R57 billion per year for free tertiary education, the ruling party's decisions on land expropriation and the proposed nationalisation of the Reserve Bank – all parting gifts from Zuma – that made the situation even more dire.
It is really difficult to be a popular and forceful president in a country with such inequality and delayed development if the state coffers are empty, national debt is at more than R1 trillion and the economy grows by less than 1% – if the president could prove that none of this is his fault.
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