South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) Monday selected Cyril Ramaphosa to succeed President Jacob Zuma as the party’s leader. The country’s deputy president defeated former cabinet minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Zuma’s ex-wife, after a marathon voting process.
Ramaphosa is in a strong position to become president in 2019 polls.
Ramaphosa defeated Ms Dlamini-Zuma by 2,440 votes to 2,261. But who is Ramaphosa?
A lover of fast cars, vintage wine, trout fishing and game farming, Ramaphosa is one of South Africa’s wealthiest politicians with a net worth of about $450m (Shs1.6trn).
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.
But business was never his passion. His first love was politics and he harboured ambitions to become the deputy of Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first black president.
When Mandela overlooked him, he was said to have been so upset that he refused to attend Mandela’s inauguration as president.
He also declined to take a post in government.
Instead, Ramaphosa – a lawyer – became an MP 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.
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.
At the time, it was not common for black people in a white-dominated sector, especially for a trade unionist who in the 1980s had organised the biggest mining strike in South Africa’s history, to increase pressure on the apartheid government.
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.
‘Foreign puppet’
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.
These accusations grew after police killed 34 workers in August 2012 at the Marikana platinum mine – the most deadly police action since white minority rule ended.
With Ramaphosa then a director in Lonmin – the multinational that owns the mine – he was accused of betraying the workers he once fought for, especially after emails emerged showing he had called for action against the miners for engaging in “dastardly criminal acts” – an apparent reference to their wildcat and violent strike.
Although a judge-led inquiry cleared him of involvement in the killings, Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema portrayed Ramaphosa as a puppet of white business and foreigners.
“Every mine has a politician inside. They [whites] give them money every month, they call it shares. But it is a protection fee to protect whites against the workers,” he said.
However, Ramaphosa, as global financial publication Forbes put it, “stepped back from his business pursuits to avoid conflicts of interest” after becoming South Africa’s deputy president in 2014.
Even as general-secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers in the 1980s, Ramaphosa was known for his lavish lifestyle.
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.
Cyril Ramaphosa at a glance:
- Born in Soweto, Johannesburg, in 1952
- Detained in 1974 and 1976 for anti-apartheid activities
- Launched the National Union of Mineworkers in 1982
- Chairman of the National Reception Committee which prepared for Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in 1990
- Became an MP and chairman of constitutional assembly in 1994
- Moved full-time into business in 1997, becoming one of South Africa’s richest businessmen
- On Lonmin board during 2012 Marikana massacre
- Became South Africa’s deputy president in 2014
- Elected ANC leader in 2017
“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.”
Also the owner of a farm with highly-prized cattle, Ramaphosa – who is married to Tshepo Motsepe, the sister of South Africa’s richest black businessman, Patrice Motsepe – once went to an auction to bid for a buffalo and her calf.
He offered about 19.5m rand ($2.3m; £1.4m), but could not match the 20m rand offered by rival bidder Jaco Troskie, the son of South African film magnate Boet Troskie.
Ramaphosa said his budget did not allow him to bid any higher.
“I spent my budget on other animals. And, like any businessman, you must know when to stop,” Mr Ramaphosa was quoted by South Africa’s City Press newspaper as saying.
His role in the auction came to haunt him after the Marikana killings, as his critics accused him of spending lavishly on animals but not paying workers a decent wage.
To salvage his credibility in the ANC and the trade union movement, he apologised on national radio.
“I regret it because it is an excessive price in the sea of poverty. I belong to a community and it was one of those moments when I was blind-sighted,” he said.
Although to some his reputation was tarnished, he rose to become ANC deputy leader in 2012 and South Africa’s deputy president in 2014, giving legitimacy to the scandal-hit presidency of Jacob Zuma.
But if he thought Zuma would back him as his successor, he was wrong.
‘Make South Africa great’
The 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 remains his boss at the national level.
He also said he believed the woman who accused Zuma of rape even though the president had been acquitted in court.
Victory takes him a step closer to fulfilling his long-held ambition of becoming South Africa’s president after the 2019 general election, an ambition that Mandela thwarted 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.
More than 20 years later, this is exactly what the suave and urbane Ramaphosa has done to the delight of his allies, who see him as the ANC’s prodigal son.
“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,” he added.
-Agencies
