This claim was made by former president Jacob Zuma at an MK party press conference on 16 June.

Zuma said the apartheid regime "could not have lasted even one day without black collaborators such as Ramaphosa".

This is not the first time he has made such claims.

When Zuma announced the launch of the MK party in December 2023, he said that he would not campaign on behalf of a government led by "sellouts and apartheid collaborators".

Is there any basis for Zuma's beliefs in this regard?

There is absolutely no mention of Ramaphosa having collaborated with the apartheid regime in his most substantial biography, written by UCT politics professor Anthony Butler.

Butler has written that Ramaphosa's political activism against apartheid began as a student, where he became part of a radical black consciousness organisation.

As a result of his activism, Ramaphosa was arrested by the Special Branch and couldn't finish his studies. He was later also arrested following the 1976 Soweto uprising.

Butler has noted that the reason Ramaphosa was so prominent after Nelson Mandela's release from prison was that he had played such a significant role in the internal opposition to apartheid, primarily as an activist within the trade union movement.

Butler has also said that Ramaphosa was, ideologically speaking,...