White businesses gave Cyril Ramaphosa R1 billion to become president – Prince Mashele

Political analyst Prince Mashele said white businesses in South Africa funded Cyril Ramaphosa’s 2017 ANC presidency campaign, known as CR17.

Mashele is one of South Africa’s best-known political commentators and has written for the Sunday Times, Sunday Independent, Business Day, and Sowetan.

He is also a sought-after political consultant and has been a speechwriter for the South African Presidency and the Pan-African Parliament.

Mashele is a former Senior Research Fellow at GovInn and served as executive director of the Centre for Politics and Research.

Speaking to the Truth Report podcast, Mashele said Ramaphosa first source of power is white business.

He said Ramaphosa raised nearly R1 billion for his CR17 campaign to become ANC president, and that this money came directly from white businesspeople.

He argues that white business owners lacked imagination by funding Ramaphosa and inadvertently fed the ANC monster.

Through their action, they essentially maintained the status quo without real political reform in South Africa.

“White businesspeople must take responsibility for what they have produced, making Ramaphosa president,” he said.

“Some of us warned them they were backing the wrong horse. However, they did not listen. Now, their money is gone,” he said.

He added that businesspeople ignored his warning that their investment would ultimately be lost as the country’s economy and institutions declined.

Mashele argued that people should have starved the ANC and pumped that money into opposition movements to force political change.

He added that there was a second source of power for Ramaphosa, which is the criminal networks within the ANC.

He said these elements mobilized votes for Ramaphosa using the funds provided by white businesses.

Mashele said these criminal networks now hold the president captive by demanding he does their bidding in exchange for that initial support.