Accusations and counter-accusations of being apartheid-era agents, spies or collaborators have flown around the South African political landscape for decades. One of those who frequently faces these allegations is the country’s current president, Cyril Ramaphosa. Ramaphosa’s opponents claim that he was planted in the country’s liberation movement in the 1980s by the White elite to protect their economic interests in a future Black-led government after the fall of apartheid.
In this February 2024 clip, Economic Freedom Fighters party leader Julius Malema adds his voice to those who allege that Ramaphosa is a sellout. According to Malema, Ramaphosa was a project of the Oppenheimer and Menell families, rich White South Africans that have owned and controlled a vast segment of the country’s economy, especially the mining sector, for decades. Malema asks how Ramaphosa, who has never been a mine worker, set up and rose to the top of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), a powerful union and a strong ally of the African National Congress (ANC) in the 1980s. He concludes that Ramaphosa’s rise was a result a backroom deals with the Oppenheimers and other powerful White South African capitalists. He also accuses Ramaphosa of bringing these businessmen into the inner circle of Nelson Mandela, the country’s first post-apartheid leader, hence compromising him as well.
While no solid evidence has been provided to back the accusations against Ramaphosa, his meteoric rise from an activist to a businessman worth more than $450 million, according to Forbes, will always raise questions and speculations.
Credit: Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF)