Forget Ramaphosa‚ start bracing for Mabuza

South Africa has to gear up for the possibility of David Mabuza becoming the country’s President in 2024.

That is what leader of the African Democratic Change (ADeC) and former ANC MP‚ Makhosi Khoza‚ said on Tuesday at a press conference in Braamfontein‚ Johannesburg. She believes Mabuza could become the president because of the aging members of the newly-elected ANC National Working Group.

“It’s all old people that have been there as ministers since 1994 or have been in some key strategic positions since 1994‚ except probably two or three‚” she said.

Khoza said the ADeC wanted to support Ramaphosa in dealing with corruption‚ but that Ramaphosa was limited by the ANC top six. She also accused the ANC of creating a “foreign concept” to what she knew as a party member of “unity without morality”.

“They are trying to achieve unity at all costs to a point where they would rather sign a pact with the devil. We can even see that unity in the way it is being done‚ it’s not unity that is mindful of the fact that we are living in a morally broken society. Corruption has been normalised.”

Khoza believes recent political events in South Africa mirrored changes in Zimbabwe. She drew a parallel between former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe‚ who wanted to install his wife Grace Mugabe as the next president‚ and President Jacob Zuma who supported ex-wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma for ANC president.

Khoza called the press conference to comment on the alleged rape of a 17-year-old girl by an under-21 Blue Bulls rugby player on December 27 last year.

“We recognise that South African women of African origin still suffer under the triple yoke of oppression‚ race‚ class and gender‚” Khoza said on Tuesday.

She attended the bail application in the New Brighton Magistrate’s Court in Port Elizabeth on Monday‚ where she pledged her support for the victim.

“I was raped when I was six years old and there was a lot of secrecy. As a result‚ I never shared it with anybody until 1992‚” Khoza said outside court on Monday.

Khoza said ADeC currently has 20‚000 members‚ but KwaZulu-Natal still had to be counted.