Cyril and Caster in global Top 100
PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa has been named among Time magazine’s 100 most-influential people in the world along with Olympic and Commonwealth Games 800 metres champion Caster Semenya.
The 96-year-old American weekly news magazine said Ramaphosa had perfected the art of patience after having honed his political skills helping his country navigate its way out of apartheid.
”Then, when he was sidelined for the presidency in the 1990s, he harnessed his cunning and gregariousness to make a vast fortune in business, while his rivals sank the country into dysfunction and cronyism,” wrote award-winning foreign correspondent Vivienne Walt.
Although the magazine stated that Ramaphosa had the chance to end corruption and grow the stalled economy, it warned that load shedding, grinding poverty and unemployment have left millions desperate for quick results and that vicious infighting in the ANC had left him vulnerable to a coup, or even to be ousted in next month’s elections.
But, according to Time, Ramaphosa had the chance to end corruption and grow the stalled economy, which could be his toughest battle yet.
Ramaphosa was chosen along with his BRICS counterparts China’s Xi Jinping and Brazil’s newly elected rightwing president Jair Bolsonaro, Pope Francis, US President Donald Trump and Venezuela’s opposition party leader Juan Guaidó.
Semenya, who had a tough year fighting the International Association of Athletics Federation’s proposed rules that would force her to lower her testosterone levels, was listed among the icons who included former US first lady Michelle Obama and Spike Lee, who was described as “a visionary, a trailblazer and a provocateur”.
Time said that if successful, Semenya could open the door for all who identified as women to compete in track events without having to first medically lower their testosterone levels.
“Ultimately, this incredibly difficult issue is a political one for sport to resolve.
“However, (if) it is addressed, Semenya will have already made a singular historical contribution to our understanding of biological sex,” writes Edwin Moses, a two-time Olympic gold medallist in track and field who helped develop the sport’s drug-testing programmes.
The continent’s other representatives, part of the world’s 100 most influential people of 2019, are Egypt’s reigning African Footballer of the Year and Liverpool star forward Mo Salah.
Salah is on the list and is described as a better human being than he is a football player, although he is one of the best in the world.
Others include the self-proclaimed greatest basketball player of all time LeBron James, Masters champion Tiger Woods and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.