Ramaphosa bought presidency for R1 billion?

Sure. But, even leaving aside the massively inflated salaries for staffers (well, a girl’s gotta eat), and bearing in mind that this was an internal election not requiring posters, T-shirts or even KFC (presumably the party footed the bill for comestibles at Nasrec), what was all the money for? Yes, there had to be hotels booked and so forth – these amounts are covered separately – so, I ask again, what was all the money for? Why did Cosatu and the Mpumalanga Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association have to get paid?

I’m not a terribly suspicious fellow, at least not when it comes to a candidate who’s very wealthy himself, but it doesn’t take the nose of a rocket scientist to smell the greasing of palms, the buying of votes. I must ask: how many kingmakers had to hire lorries to truck their wallets away from Nasrec?

These are not pleasant things to think about – they suggest that even our Mr Clean had to play the ANC game, in order to secure the Presidency.
The meta-story here is that eighteen months after coming to power, Ramaphosa has failed to shut his internal opponents down; they’re whacking him, almost at will.