Zuma rival secures ANC presidency to bring hope to turbulent South Africa
CYRIL RAMAPHOSA, South Africa’s deputy leader, has been elected the new president of the country’s ruling African National Congress, bringing Jacob Zuma’s troubled leadership of the party to an end.
Thousands of delegates dressed in the party’s yellow and green colours burst into applause and danced as the election results were announced at a conference centre on the outskirts of Johannesburg, where the ANC met for the first time in 1990 after a ban was lifted on the organisation.
The move puts Mr Ramaphosa, a veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle and one of South Africa’s wealthiest citizens, in pole position to become the country’s next president.
The vote also puts to bed a bitter election battle with Nkosazana Dlaminizuma, Mr Zuma’s 68-year-old former wife and the mother of four of his children. Critics saw her bid for the presidency as potentially damaging to the party given her proximity to Mr Zuma and the corruption scandals that have dogged his recent years in power.
Mr Zuma’s term as head of state will be up in 2019 when national elections are scheduled to be held. David Mabuza, premier of Mpumalanga province, was chosen as Mr Ramaphosa’s deputy president of the party.
Mr Ramaphosa, a 65-year-old lawyer and businessman, inherits a liberation movement whose reputation has been battered by corruption scandals and failure to deliver on the promises of a free South Africa. During the run-up to the vote, he promised to reform the ruling party and has called the corruption allegations “the enemy of the people”. “The overall sentiment across a large body of ordinary South Africans will certainly be uplifted as a result of his victory,” said Daniel Silke, an independent political analyst. “There will be a sense of relief in many South Africans.”
Mr Ramaphosa’s candidacy has been favoured by investors, who see him as the best bet for getting the nation’s sluggish economy and unpredictable policy environment back on track.
“There is going to be a renewed confidence immediately,” said William Gumede, executive chairman of the Democracy Works Foundation. “The country is in paralysis. Business is not investing because they are uncertain. There’s paralysis in the state also.”
In a sign of the direction the race was heading, senior ANC leaders made the unusual move of offering the deputy president their support in the early hours of yesterday on social media. “Am casting my vote for comrade Ramaphosa for ANC President,” Zizi Kodwa, national spokesman, said on Twitter. “Whatever happens I trust he will restore confidence and inspire hope.”
For the last three days, more than 4,700 party delegates from around the country have hunkered down to prepare for the historic decision to elect the next leader of Nelson Mandela’s bruised liberation struggle.
Delegates waited nearly two hours for the results, with Mr Zuma taking the podium to sing a few tunes to pass the time, much to the crowd’s delight.
Finally, a spokesman for the election agency that conducted the vote announced Mr Ramaphosa had beaten Mrs Dlamini-zuma, former African union commission chairman, to the party’s top job by 179 votes.
“We declare Comrade Cyril Ramaphosa as the new president of the African National Congress,” she said.