If President Cyril Ramaphosa had been open and honest when the scandal broke in 2020 about what happened on his farm and that he had perhaps made some grave and regretful mistakes, he would probably have received much sympathy from many people.
I FIRMLY believe that the only way to understand the current mindset of embattled President Cyril Ramaphosa is to look back briefly at his political history. I first met Ramaphosa in 1982 when the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) was formed.
Together with James Matlatsi, then president of NUM, he played the leading role in the formation of NUM.
He was always a charming person, had a magnetic personality, a powerful determination to succeed, and a huge sense of himself. He is very strong-minded and has an incredible willpower to pursue and get his way.
We were thereafter together in the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), which was formed in 1985. I was then an organiser/educator for the Paper, Printing, Wood, and Allied Workers Union and he was then still the leader of NUM.
