By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Public Protector has cleared President Cyril Ramaphosa of wrongdoing over comments made during a meeting at the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on May 21, 2025.
The complaint was lodged by uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MK) Party’s Mzwanele Manyi, who alleged that Ramaphosa had violated the Executive Ethics Code by failing to correct or disassociate himself from comments made by Minister of Agriculture and Democratic Alliance (DA) John Steenhuisen regarding the status of the MK Party and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in relation to the Government of National Unity (GNU).
The matter stems from a White House meeting were US president Donald Trump ambushed Ramaphosa by playing video clips of EFF leader Julius Malema chanting “kill the boer” and footage of members of the MK Party calling for land, in a setting that drew heightened political attention both locally and abroad.
During the meeting, Steenhuisen said to Trump that the DA joined the GNU to prevent the EFF and the MK party from entering government.
Manyi asserted that Steenhuisen used the platform to play politics and promote the DA’s agenda, during what was meant to be an official government engagement.
Ramaphosa and his high-level delegation visited the White House to discuss Pretoria’s strained diplomatic tensions with the US.
A shocked Ramaphosa, who had just been exchanging pleasantries with Trump about golf, watched silently. An experienced diplomat who once served as Nelson Mandela’s chief negotiator during talks to end White minority rule, Ramaphosa could barely disguise his discomfort.
The moment was an orchestrated one, with Trump’s team also having printed out articles for him to hold up in front of the cameras that he said backed up his claims of White “genocide.”
It was perhaps inevitable that Trump would use the meeting to advance the fringe claims — which he’s amplified for months — that White farmers in South Africa are having their land seized and are being killed in massive numbers.
The Public Protector Kholeka Gcaleka found that Ramaphosa did not violate section 2 of parliament’s code of ethical conduct.
“After a thorough investigation – which included analysis of video recordings, correspondence, constitutional provisions, and the executive ethics code – the Public Protector found no evidence that the president had breached the code,” Gcaleka said in a statement on Monday evening.
She found that the minister of agriculture made the comments on the MK party and EFF as a DA leader, not as government policy.
“The president had no legal duty to rebut political statements made by a coalition partner in a diplomatic setting,” Gcaleka said.
Furthermore, She said there was no indication of a conflict in Ramaphosa’s conduct. Her office found no conflict between his official responsibilities and any private interest.
“The allegations in terms of clauses 2.3(c) and 2.3(f) were found to be unsubstantiated, and the matter has been formally closed.”
The Public Protector further said political parties retain the constitutional right to articulate their positions, even within coalition governments.
Trump’s fixation on the alleged mistreatment of White South Africans is not a new obsession; he discussed wanting to help White farmers displaced from their land at points during his first term. Yet his public claims of oppression and “genocide” have significantly ramped up in the opening months of his second term.