The African National Congress opened a new chapter in its history when it elected Cyril Ramaphosa on December 18 as its new leader for the next five years at its 54th elective conference in Johannesburg. He replaced President Jacob Zuma. The victory has placed him in good stead to succeed Zuma as the president of South Africa in 2019, when a new election would be held.
It was a hotly-contested battle between him and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, an ex-wife of the president. How the votes were shared: 2,440 for Ramaphosa, and 2,261 for his rival, said it all. Ramaphosa, 65, the country’s deputy president, was an anti-apartheid trade union activist. He was imprisoned many times by the White Supremacists until 1994 when democracy was achieved with the emergence of Nelson Mandela as the first elected president of South Africa.
His choice as the new ANC leader was a big relief to a majority of South Africans and foreign interest groups, who had clamoured for a solid foundation for a post-Zuma epoch. Anxiety had suffused the political and business climate with Zuma’s support for his former wife, who had four children for him. She had held cabinet positions in previous governments and is the first woman to head the African Union Commission. Her ANC leadership campaign was encapsulated in “radical economic reforms,” a populist and antagonistic drive that eyed businesses owned by the whites.
Even more troubling was the perception in some quarters that Zuma’s support for her was a covert move to establish a Zuma political dynasty that will ultimately protect him from prosecution after he would have vacated office, against the background of a raft of scandals, many of them criminal in nature, which have seemingly diminished his exalted office.
State funds amounting to $23 million, for instance, were used to expand his KwaZulu country residence, build a swimming pool and a cattle ranch, an action South Africa’s Supreme Court declared was a violation of the constitution in 2016. Similarly, a Supreme Court of Appeal in October this year ruled that the 783 charges levelled against him that bordered on money-laundering and corruption in relation to a 1999 arms deal, earlier cleared eight years ago, should be returned for retrial, amid his ruckus insistence of innocence.
In March, Zuma jangled the business community and foreign investors, when he sacked his highly respected Minister of Finance, Pravin Gordham, for selfish reasons. Ramaphosa chided the president; the market reacted with the Fitch Rating Agency’s down-grade of the country’s foreign currency debt to junk in April. Gordham shot back: “We hope more and more South Africans would make it clear that our country is not for sale.” But immediately Ramaphosa got the ANC crown, the rand – the country’s currency – appreciated by four per cent, the highest since March when Gordham was thrown out of his job.
As the ANC helmsman and potential president, Ramaphosa is very much aware of the enormous challenges ahead. This was evident in his closing address at the conference with these remarks: “The people of South Africa want action. They do not want words…They want an ANC that uses public office, not to serve vested interests, but to build a truly developmental state and a vibrant, inclusive economy that creates jobs and improves lives.”
Indeed, the situation is dire. Inequality, poverty and unemployment continue to ravage the majority of the rainbow nation. The black communities undoubtedly are the victims. Rape, robbery and other forms of gun violence and HIV/AIDS remain existential social concerns.
Corrupt political leadership and mismanagement recently plunged the economy into recession. The Gross Domestic Product, which was $398 billion in 2012, shrank to $296 at the end of 2016, while unemployment was put at 26.7 per cent – a 14-year high; just as economic growth rate was just 0.3 per cent, according to Focus Economics – Economic Forecasts from World’s Leading Economists. The forecast for 2018 is 1.3 per cent. This is not good enough.
Under Mandela’s and Thabo Mbeki’s leadership, South Africa was a respected voice in the comity of nations, a moral authority only a few nations boasted. But with Zuma, the situation has become ghoulish. With his insistence on pulling the country out of the International Criminal Court, he encouraged Zaire, the Gambia, Kenya and Sudan to tread a path that will aggravate abuse of power and bad governance, which are already endemic on the continent. It does not matter to Zuma that a court has declared his unilateral action without recourse to parliamentary approval unconstitutional.
As the most sophisticated economy in Africa, its sustained vibrancy is critical, not only for her to deal with well-entrenched socio-economic crises that have continued to plague the post-apartheid era, but will also bode well for other countries, especially those in the Southern African Development Community, to achieve regional economic integration; and her continued relevance as one of the continent’s most outstanding “big brothers” along with Nigeria and Egypt.
For these visions to materialise, unity of purpose among the 80-member ANC decision-making body is imperative. But an absence of it will spell doom. The prognosis of Richard Calland, a professor of Law at the University of Cape Town, and an expert on South Africa’s politics, is ominous. He argues, “The ANC will struggle to rebrand itself as a party of progressive centre… the paradox is that Dlamini-Zuma lost but her faction won.” The ANC Secretary-General, Ace Magashule, and the Deputy-President, David Mabuza, are allies of President Zuma, who might have rallied support for Ramaphosa’s rival.
However, all concerned should be conscious of the ANC’s enviable past, a liberation movement that successfully fought for the people’s freedom and the immortal sacrifices of Mandela and other patriarchs, to give this new dawn the envisaged meaning.
