Ramaphosa and Sisulu battle

THE back and forth battle between President Cyril Ramaphosa and his senior member of Cabinet, Lindiwe Sisulu, continued yesterday with no end in sight.

Analysts believe that now, no matter how Ramaphosa decides to approach Sisulu (or not), he would be on the back foot.

The gloves came off this week after the Presidency issued a statement that Ramaphosa had “specifically admonished the minister” about her attack on the judiciary and suggested that Sisulu had retracted her “unsubstantiated, hurtful comments” about the judiciary.

But, Sisulu’s quick response to the statement branded Ramaphosa a liar.

Sisulu said that at Wednesday night’s meeting, Ramaphosa had shared his challenge with one aspect of the article on the judges.

“Under no circumstances did I commit to any retraction or apology since I stand by what I penned.”

Sisulu added: “The content of the president’s statement in its current form is unfortunate as it is not what we agreed on. In this regard, I wish to distance myself from such,” she said.

Then, later, on Thursday evening, Minister in the Presidency Mondli Gungubele issued a second statement saying that the Presidency stood by its statement, and it had nothing to add.

But again, yesterday, Sisulu issued a statement, this time hitting back at the president’s media team, claiming they misrepresented her meeting with Ramaphosa.

In that statement, Sisulu said she respected the Office of the Presidency and the president but was “troubled” by the media team’s “deliberately mischievous” actions.

She said the president took issue with her expression relating to the judiciary and he proposed that a third person or intermediary assist in the particular and solitary line he found an “offensive expression”.

“We had a mature and sensible meeting and thus concluded on good terms.

“In fact, yesterday, Thursday, the president called me and read the specific sentence as redesigned that he had found offensive. We ended our discussion on an amicable basis,” Sisulu said.

She said she wanted to place on record that she was troubled “that the president’s media team was deliberately mischievous”.

“… at no point in the conversation was (the minister) firstly admonished or secondly expressed regrets resulting in agreeing to withdraw or apologise for her article, but agreed to reconsider the particular line relating to the judiciary which the president had raised issue with and was to share with her,” read the statement issued by Sisulu’s spokesperson, Steve Motale.

Political analyst Professor Sipho Seepe said that while he understood Ramaphosa was trying to do damage control, he underestimated Sisulu’s determination.

Seepe said the tit-for-tat between the two senior members of the ANC was indicative of a party that lost touch with its people.