Successive South African presidents haven't taken advantage of the power at their disposal, but future leaders should exercise their authority more broadly.

On 8 May 2026, South Africa's Constitutional Court passed a judgment declaring Parliament's 2022 decision to reject a Section 89 independent panel report published earlier in the same year as "irrational, unconstitutional, and invalid", opening the way to impeachment proceedings against President Cyril Ramaphosa.

That judgment brings the Phala Phala scandal to the fore again, highlighting the far cry that Ramaphosa's executive political leadership has been from the hope he gave many South Africans, immediately after the horror that was the Zuma presidency, and during his inaugural presidential address in 2018, when, quoting Hugh Masekela's song about "self-sacrifice, individual responsibility and the importance of personal change", he said to Parliament and millions of South Africans watching and listening in: "Send Me."

Without denying the injustice of apartheid South Africa, and barring the world's elder statesman, the Phala Phala scandal raises questions about the quality of South Africa's post-1994 executive political leadership.

Specifically, because we live in an electoral democracy, the scandal also encourages us to think about how we can get ethical and competent leaders into public office, beginning with the presidency, why this hasn't already happened 32 years after South Africa's first...