Ramaphosa’s Political Days Are Now Numbered in South Africa

Last week, South Africa’s top court ordered parliament to conduct an impeachment hearing into Cyril Ramaphosa’s handling of the theft of hundreds of thousands of US dollars stashed in a sofa at his game farm. The ruling effectively seals the president’s fate, leaving just the question of timing: Does he leave office immediately, setting off uncertainty and chaos in the governing coalition he’s built with the market-friendly Democratic Alliance (DA) and others? Or does he put up a fight, giving himself time to ease a successor into place and try to maintain stability?

An inquiry into how $580,000 ended up stashed in cushions at Ramaphosa’s game farm, how it got stolen in 2020 and why he set his security chief and political adviser on the thieves’ trail without informing the police now looks inevitable. In November 2022, a parliamentary panel suggested he had breached the constitution over his handling of the matter, but the African National Congress (ANC) used its majority to block an impeachment hearing. Weeks later, Ramaphosa was re-elected leader of the ANC and, in 2024, of the country. He’s consistently denied wrongdoing.