How to save South Africa

No South AfricanancANC embodies the country’s modern history like Cyril Ramaphosa. As a trade-union boss in the 1980s he helped lead the struggle against apartheid. In the 1990s, as an aide to Nelson Mandela, he negotiated the shift to multiracial democracy. After liberation, Mr Ramaphosa grew fabulously wealthy, as the new ruling party, , pressed white-owned businesses to transfer equity to black capitalists. “Black economic empowerment”, as it was called, was legal but enriched only a well-connected few. In the 2010s Mr Ramaphosa re-entered politics, serving the disastrous Jacob Zuma as deputy president. He became president in 2018, vowing to overhaul the economy and to clean up the corruption Mr Zuma had left behind. He has failed to do so. That failure has inflicted grave harm on South Africa, and will probably lead to the party of Mandela losing its hegemony.On December 16th will begin its quinquennial conference, where Mr Ramaphosa is expected to be re-elected as party leader. If so, he will probably head the party in a general election in 2024. His chances have been dented by a scandal—part John le Carré, part “Carry On”—involving his handling of at least $580,000 from what he says was the sale of buffaloes to a Sudanese businessman and what his opponents say was something fishier. On December 13th he survived a parliamentary vote that would have impeached him.