Change of Baton in South Africa

Cyril Ramaphosa recently emerged as South Africa’s president a day after embattled former leader Jacob Zuma stepped down. Danusa Ocholi reports.

At 65 he could pass as the youngest and the wealthiest leader to govern South Africa in the post- apartheid era. With fortunes amounting to $450 million, he emerged as the country’s new strong man on February 14 when he was presented as the only candidate nominated by parliament, which is dominated by his African National Congress, ANC. Members of Parliament had broken into songs at the announcement of his name as the country’s new leader in place of scandal-hit Jacob Zuma leadership.

In his first presidential speech, Ramaphosa said he would tackle corruption which allegedly became widespread under the erstwhile president. The ANC had earlier told Zuma to step down or face a vote of no-confidence. At the time of his eventual disgrace from office Zuma faced numerous corruption allegations but maintained all along that he was innocent.

The immediate past leader will however have problem proving his innocence as an arrest warrant has been issued for Ajay Gupta, one of the three most prominent Gupta brothers believed to be the associate of the former leader, officials said. This followed a raid by the Hawks, an elite police unit, on their home recently. The family has denied corruption allegations being speculated against them. By and large, Ramaphosa, the new leader is believed to be a more high profile figure than his predecessor. A lover of fast cars, vintage wine, trout fishing and game farming, South Africa’s new President is one of the country’s richest individuals. After he was elected leader of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) in December, it was obvious that he would soon achieve his long-held dream of becoming president. Once a leading trade unionist, he became the symbol of Black capitalism in South Africa after the ANC came to power at the end of white minority rule in 1994.

Incidentally, business was never his passion. His first love was politics and he nursed ambition to become the deputy of Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first black president. When the father of South African politics, Mandela, overlooked him to be his deputy, he was said to have been so upset that he refused to attend his inauguration as president. He also declined to take a post in government. Instead, Ramaphosa - a lawyer - became a member of parliament and chairman of the constitutional assembly, playing the lead role in drafting South Africa’s post-apartheid constitution, one of the most liberal in the world. He was also well known on the global stage, having served as Mandela’s chief negotiator in the talks that led to the end of apartheid in 1994, and was invited to be one of two international arms inspectors in Northern Ireland, where he played a key role in the peace process by inspecting the IRA’s secret arms dumps. To the dismay of many South Africans who saw him as the most credible politician of the post-Mandela generation, Ramaphosa later withdrew from the political centre-stage to become a businessman. The ANC has been in power since minority rule ended in 1994.

As white businessmen tried to accommodate him, Ramaphosa acquired a stake in nearly every key sector - from telecoms and the media (where he rarely interfered in the editorial independence of newspapers he owned) to beverages and fast food (he owned the South African franchise of the US chain, McDonalds) to mining. But as a politician with tremendous unionism background, Ramaphosa always kept a foothold in the ANC, serving on its top leadership body, the National Executive Committee, a position that, his critics say, gave him insider information and unparalleled access to government ministers as he built his business empire. As his biographer Anthony Butler wrote in Johannesburg’s Mail and Guardian newspaper, “Ramaphosa has always believed that education, the arts, vintage wine and fast cars should not be reserved for the rich or middle-class whites. As a union leader he always flew first class.

“He also insisted that his regional negotiators, some of whom had never been inside a hotel before, should stay in the same luxury hotels as their management counterparts.” But if he thought Zuma would back him as his successor, he was wrong. The then president threw his weight behind his ex-wife and former African Union Commission chief, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, leaving Ramaphosa to fight hard to become ANC leader. In an increasingly bitter campaign, Ramaphosa became the anti-Zuma candidate, saying he would fight corruption, which was widely seen as a dig at the man who remained his boss at the national level. He also said he believed the woman who accused Zuma of rape even though the ex-president had been acquitted in court. Mandela thwarted Ramaphosa’s presidential ambitions in 1994 when, under pressure from his ANC colleagues, he chose the more senior Thabo Mbeki as his deputy. At the time, Mandela’s former doctor and businessman, Nthatho Motlana, said that Ramaphosa - then only in his 40s - had age on his side, that he should move into business and return to the political frontline at a later stage.

According to Ramaphosa, “A moment of great renewal is upon us and we should not let it go by,” he said on the campaign trail. We should grasp it, unite our country around one goal - the goal of making South Africa great. The goal of making South Africa corruption-free… and getting rid of greedy people, corrupt people within our ranks.” Ramaphosa has said his priority is reviving South Africa’s battered economy. But it won’t be easy: Unemployment is currently at almost 30%, a rate which rises to nearly 40% for young people. Low growth rates and dwindling investor confidence were compounded by two credit agencies downgrading the economy to junk status.

One of the first steps in improving that investor confidence is addressing the persistent claims of corruption at the heart of government. Ramaphosa has promised to turn this around, and bring back an ANC that serves the people. The real turning point, however, is for the South African public, with just over a year to the next election, to focus on demanding transparency and accountability and reclaim their democracy.