President Cyril Ramaphosa cuts an enigmatic figure in SA politics, and his appearance at the Zondo commission of inquiry into state capture this week will only reinforce perceptions of our president as a puzzling, and puzzled, man. He seems to live in a world all of his own, a world in which the day’s news that ordinary people have at their fingertips appears to never quite reach him, and when it does it has long since outlived its usefulness. Worse still, in his account to the commission of his service in cabinet under former president Jacob Zuma, he comes across as disengaged, seemingly shrugging off quite important developments with a diffident giggle and a smile. Yet this evidently hides a steely will, a man with the political stamina, if not the stomach, for the dirty work our politics requires...