Ramphele vows to restore Mandela’s legacy

She was a key figure in South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle — a founder of the Black Consciousness Movement alongside her lover, the campaigner Steve Biko — and was charged with terrorism before being banished to a remote village. For years after white rule ended, she resisted pressure from her close friend Nelson Mandela to re-enter politics — preferring to become first a doctor, then managing director of the World Bank, and finally a mining company magnate. However, Dr Mamphela Ramphele has decided to return to the fray.

But instead of joining Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC), she has set up her own political movement seeking to topple it from power. In doing so, the slight 66-year-old has abandoned a comfortable retirement of playing with her grandchildren in her elegant Cape home overlooking the Atlantic, and thrown herself into the bear pit of South Africa’s testosterone-laden and frequently vicious political scene. She has taken the step because she believes that today’s ANC has “betrayed the legacy” of its most celebrated father through a descent into corruption, nepotism and poor leadership.

President Jacob Zuma was booed at Mandela’s memorial service in December because, she said, “people are now distinguishing between the ANC of Mandela and Oliver Tambo, and Zuma’s ANC. They don’t believe they are the same.” Her party, Agang, meaning “build” in the Sotho language, aims to attract up to 15 per cent of the vote, at the least becoming a “catalytic voice in parliament”, and at the most forming part of a coalition to oust the ANC in nationwide elections this year.

Political pundits put her chances of landing a significant punch on such a powerful ruling party as slender, but applaud her for bringing a measure of principled debate to the arena. They concede that with several months still to go and her anger at the ANC shared by many, “anything is possible”. Notable among the few who have so far risked backing her publicly is Desmond Tutu, another giant of the anti-apartheid movement who has made no secret of his disdain for what the ruling party has become. He praised her “calibre, background, intellect and resourcefulness” in a newspaper article when Agang was launched. “She is an African woman — I happen to think women make better politicians than men — and she is entering our political discourse on a clean slate, so to speak,” the Nobel laureate wrote.

Last week, Dr Ramphele arrived in London to embark on a speaking tour in an attempt to garner funds and votes from the United Kingdom’s large South African expatriate contingent.

Dr Ramphele was brought up in a Limpopo village, the daughter of primary-school teachers who instilled in her a respect for people “regardless of their station in life” and a love of books that has remained with her to this day. A shy child, she shunned playing with schoolmates to focus on her studies, honing her workaholic nature. She met Biko at university, where they were both studying medicine. As well as having two children together, the couple co-created the Black Consciousness Movement to encourage blacks to take responsibility for their own empowerment.

In 1977, when 29-year-old Dr Ramphele was five months pregnant, Biko was beaten to death in police custody. His death made him a worldwide household name, a byword for the brutality of apartheid South Africa. Peter Gabriel’s song “Biko” became an instant hit, and Denzel Washington, the Hollywood actor, played him in the film “Cry Freedom”.

Dr Ramphele is still widely known as “Biko’s girlfriend” despite her many achievements, but says: “We still live in a man’s world. If I had been the one who died, I would be gone and forgotten.

“It’s also true that he was a remarkable person. I’m proud to have been associated with him. I’m proud that I was part of that movement and I continue to live the values of that movement. I’m able to do what I am doing because of the values that we shared.”

While talk of such values sounds hollow these days when it comes from seasoned politicians who seem to live by their antithesis, Dr Ramphele has yet to be gainsaid on her claim to the moral high ground. During her Limpopo exile, she set up women’s co-operatives to make bricks, build houses and grow vegetables; at Cape Town University, where she served as vice-chancellor, she ended corrupt business contracts and cracked down on student-teacher flings. At the helm of various mining firms, she pushed for better housing and improved health and safety; at the World Bank she pushed for gender equality policies. She has returned to national politics because she does not want the principles for which she fought to be lost.

“I’m doing what I’m doing because I believe in human dignity, equality and freedom. I cannot be free if my fellow human beings are not free,” she said. But could she as one woman keep her principles and ensure that others did the same when faced with the temptations of high office? “I don’t think it’s inevitable that people in power are corrupt,” she said. “Rooting out corruption is not impossible, it’s all about political will.” Agang proposes to ban office-bearers and their families from doing business with the state, with 15-year minimum prison sentences for those who break the rules.

Dr Ramphele has revealed that she herself has personal assets worth R55 million (Dh19 million) built up from her various jobs, and rivals immediately accused her of “flaunting her wealth in the face of the poor”.

Last week, the ANC launched its 2014 election manifesto, in which it promised to create six million jobs, cut corruption and build tens of thousands of schools. Dr Ramphele summed that up succinctly as a “joke”, coming so soon after the president was told by the anti-corruption watchdog to repay £12.9 million (Dh78 million) of taxpayers’ money spent on “security” upgrades to his private home, which included a swimming pool and an amphitheatre.

“To talk about being tough on corruption and for that voice to come from Mr Corruption, just doesn’t make sense,” she said. “You must model what you preach if you’re to be credible.”

Recently, at a school in Soweto, she focused on her other main policy, telling 400 children: “The sky is the limit if you work hard.” Dressed in a blue skirt suit, sensible block heels, pearls at her throat and cavernous handbag over her arm, her appearance and demeanour had echoes of Margaret Thatcher, but her words could have come from Tony Blair as she said the key to a brighter future for South Africa was “education, education, education”.

Soweto, the sprawling township on the edge of Johannesburg where Mandela lived, was where Zuma was booed. For Dr Ramphele, it could represent fertile ground. One local teacher said: “I’ve always voted ANC — I even campaigned for them — but I won’t now, they’ve gone too far.

“I don’t think any of the teachers here would vote for them again and we’re all of us looking for an alternative. She could be it.”

Agang is just one among the alternatives. Another is the noisy, red-beret wearing Economic Freedom Fighters, led by Julius Malema, the firebrand former ANC Youth League president who has also turned against the ruling party. A charismatic figure who has promised Zimbabwe-style land seizures and the nationalisation of South Africa’s rich mines, he is the wild card in this spring’s election — but Dr Ramphele dismisses him as too populist to be true.

“I have to say things that are based on fact,” was how she put it. She has more time, however, for South Africa’s largest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, which could win a quarter of the vote but is still perceived as too white by many voters. She would consider allying with it if the opportunity arose. “I would absolutely consider a coalition,” she said. “It’s not about me, or Agang, it’s about the country. We said when we launched that we were willing to work with other parties.”

This will be a crucial year for South Africa, she believes. “The ANC could lose power this election, if South Africans believe in themselves and have the confidence to be bold. “We have to hit them when they are weakest. If they win 2014 comfortably, they will really batten down the hatches. My advice to my fellow citizens is we have got to go for broke now.

“As the leader of Agang, I advocate accountability and transparency in public office because I believe in these values. I could have just enjoyed being a grandmother, but I’m doing what I am doing for my grandchildren and the future of our country.”

–The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2014