In October 2018, former finance minister Nhlanhla Nene submitted his letter of resignation to President Cyril Ramaphosa after admitting to meeting the Guptas. He revealed this at the Zondo Commission after initially telling a journalist he did not meet Jacob Zuma's besties.
Nene was not implicated in corruption, taking money from the Guptas or running a business. His sin was to be economical with the truth when a reporter asked him a few years prior whether he had met with the family from India.
Ramaphosa, who came to power earlier that year on a "new dawn" ticket, duly accepted Nene's resignation, and said: "It is a measure of his character and his commitment to the national interest that he has taken this decision to resign in the wake of errors of judgment, even though he has not been implicated in acts of wrongdoing."
Nene took full responsibility for his mistakes and said he didn't want to derail Ramaphosa's project of cleaning up the state capture years.
"I was wrong in meeting the Guptas at their residence and not in my office or at least a public place. I say this being mindful of the fact that it is quite common practice, not only in South Africa but globally, for public office bearers to attend gatherings, including dinners, at residences of businesspeople, fellow politicians, and other stakeholders."
Three years later, then-health minister Zweli Mkhize resigned after he was linked to a R150-million tender awarded by his department to a company with links to his family.
Ramaphosa, again, lauded Mkhize's "honourable" resignation and asked people not to judge his links to the Digital Vibes scandal too quickly.
In the wake of Mkhize's resignation, Ramaphosa said: The ANC has committed itself to act against corruption. Our people abhor corruption; they hate it, and this is precisely what the ANC stands for. Hitherto, we've been very light on acting against people who have done wrong. We are now in a new era, a new dawn, we are doing things differently.
Why is this context important?
Because it explains Ramaphosa's initial decision to resign last week after receiving the report from an independent panel appointed by Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula to investigate whether he had a case to answer for possible impeachment.
The panel, headed by former chief justice Sandile Ngcobo, found he did.
In keeping with the high standards set particularly by Nene, who wasn't even vaguely implicated in a criminal offence, Ramaphosa wanted to do the right thing by stepping aside, even if he believed the Ngcobo report would not survive judicial scrutiny.
A Ramaphosa resignation could have had potentially dire consequences; the markets would have plunged, confidence in South Africa would have taken a dip, and a man implicated in a variety of criminal offences from his time as a provincial strongman in Mpumalanga, David Mabuza, would have become acting state president - at least until the ANC elects a new leader in December.
But, with a capital B, a resignation from Ramaphosa after the unsurprising findings that he has many more questions to answer about the very dodgy Phala Phala saga, would have shown South Africans and the world that nobody in the country is above the law; not even the man who turned around the ship on corruption and under whose leadership massive strides were made to investigate, arrest and prosecute those responsible for a decade of plunder.
As much as Ramaphosa represents the "new dawn" administration that started cleaning up Jacob Zuma's mess, we cannot claim to be a democracy if our constitutional state and rule of law hinge on one man's heartbeat. It is simply untenable and untrue.
Justice Minister Ronald Lamola has been a rock in ensuring the turnaround at the NPA. Agriculture Minister Thoko Didiza has balanced the expropriation debate and her support of the farming industry like a pro. Senzo Mchunu is making huge strides as water and sanitation minister, and Shamila Batohi (NPA), Andrea Johnson (ID) and Chief Justice Raymond Zondo cannot be removed overnight by Mabuza or whoever leads the country until 2024, at least not without a fight.
South Africa is stronger and more resilient than Ramaphosa.
We survived the Zuma years because civil society, opposition parties, the media and the judiciary stood firm, independent and fearless in exposing state capture, corruption and malfeasance.
The Zondo Commission was scathing in its assessment of Parliament's inability to hold Zuma and the executive to account. The Ngcobo report, flawed as it may be, is exactly as a result of efforts by Parliament to step up accountability, and we should be careful to diss Ngcobo and the process just because we don't like its findings.
It is Ramaphosa's own fault, not Ngcobo's, that the president has so far refused to come clean to the nation about the source of the alleged R9 million that was stolen from his farm, the reason why a criminal case wasn't opened, and the inexplicable fact that the burglars, after their arrest, weren't charged or prosecuted.
Ramaphosa was seemingly convinced to stay for reasons of political opportunism, rather than principle. Ironically, the main man in charge of convincing Ramaphosa to stay – Gwede Mantashe – is himself the subject of a state capture investigation into Bosasa and has singlehandedly been responsible for South Africa's energy crisis of the past 18 months through his resistance to renewable energy.
Make no mistake, the likes of Mantashe don't want to safeguard the rule of law by begging Ramaphosa to stay, but their own jobs.
The new dawn is officially over and in 18 months (or less, if the DA has its way) South Africans will have the opportunity to eject the ANC and their internal dramas from state power for good.
It's time to let go of the myth that, without Ramaphosa, our constitutional democracy will evaporate as fast as the German team from the Soccer World Cup.
