Mr Negotiate’s big chance
MANDELA WANTED RAMAPHOSA TO SUCCEED HIM Many believe president’s business background equips him to save economy.
South Africa’s great negotiator, Cyril Ramaphosa, has fulfilled his long-held ambition to lead the country. Deputy president since 2014, Ramaphosa has been the country’s dominant politician since he replaced Jacob Zuma as leader of the ANC in December. But he had to strike a fine balance between applying pressure on Zuma and affording him a dignified exit.
Facing waning electoral support for his party, Ramaphosa needed to avoid alienating ANC members loyal to Zuma, despite economic stagnation and sleaze allegations that tainted his nine years in power.
Ramaphosa, 65, used the same painstaking negotiating strategy he employed in talks to end white minority rule, when he negotiated on behalf of the ANC. He ignored frustration from some sections of the media and opposition parties who have been howling for Zuma to go for years.
Ramaphosa’s dealmaking skills have been apparent for decades.
Nelson Mandela turned to the former trade union leader when he needed a tenacious negotiator to lead talks to end apartheid. The conclusion of those talks paved the way for Mandela to sweep to power in 1994 after South Africa’s first democratic vote.
Mandela wanted Ramaphosa to be his heir but was pressured into picking Thabo Mbeki by a group of ANC leaders who had fought apartheid from exile.
Ramaphosa faces a major challenge in turning the country around. But his pledges to boost growth and fight corruption have gone down well with foreign investors and ANC members, who thought Zuma’s handling of the economy could cost the party dearly in an election next year.
Financial markets have seen a “Ramaphosa rally” since he defeated Zuma’s preferred successor and ex-wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma in last year’s ANC leadership contest.
Unlike Zuma, Ramaphosa was not driven into exile for opposing apartheid, which some of the party’s more hard-line members hold against him. He fought the injustices of white minority rule from within South Africa, most prom- inently by defending the rights of black miners as leader of the National Union of Mineworkers.
A member of the relatively small Venda ethnic group, Ramaphosa was able to overcome divisions that sometimes constrain members of the larger Zulu and Xhosa groups.
A massive miners’ strike led by Ramaphosa’s NUM in 1987 taught business that “Cyril was a force to be reckoned with”, said Michael Spicer, a former executive at Anglo American.
Ramaphosa also played an important role in drafting South Africa’s post-apartheid constitution.
After missing out on becoming Mandela’s deputy, Ramaphosa withdrew from active political life, switching to business.
His investment vehicle Shanduka – Venda for “change” – grew rapidly and acquired stakes in mining firms, mobile phone operator MTN and McDonald’s’ South African franchise.
By the time Ramaphosa sold Shanduka in 2014, the firm was worth more than R8 billion, making him one of South Africa’s 20 richest people.
To some, Ramaphosa’s business success equips him to turn around the economy.
Pravin Gordhan, a respected former finance minister, told Reuters Ramaphosa’s election as ANC leader was enough to change “the narrative about South Africa’s economy” within three months.
But Ramaphosa has his detractors, too. He was a nonexecutive director at Lonmin when negotiations to halt a violent wildcat strike at its Marikana platinum mine in 2012 ended in police shooting 34 strikers dead.
An inquiry subsequently absolved Ramaphosa of guilt. But some families of the victims still blame him for urging the authorities to intervene. –