Cyril Ramaphosa: New South African President seen as a stabilising influence
He is viewed as a safe pair of hands who can balance the demands of employers with ANC members' requests for land distribution.
Thursday 15 February 2018 16:07, UK
If Nelson Mandela had had his way, 65-year old Cyril Ramaphosa would have been selected as President of South Africa 18 years ago.
The fabled freedom fighter was extremely close to Mr Ramaphosa, who was one of the first people to greet him when he was released from Victor Verster Prison by the Apartheid regime in 1990.
But Mr Mandela bowed to the will of party, the African National Congress, when its members selected a long-time political exile called Thabo Mbeki to replace him after his one and only term as president in 1999.
Ramaphosa would leave the swirling world of politics and embark on a business career.
His return to national politics has come as a surprise to some but Cyril Ramaphosa will be welcomed by the majority of South Africans after the chaos, controversy and utter unpredictability of the Jacob Zuma years.
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A skillful negotiator who made a fortune with stakes in McDonald's and Coca Cola, Ramaphosa is widely seen as a stabilising influence – a safe pair of hands – who can balance the demands of employers and investors with the stringent requests for income and land distribution that is central to the membership of the ANC.
A man once described by Mandela as one of the most gifted leaders in the nation, he got his start in life in Soweto on the outskirts of Johannesburg.
The son of a policemen, he studied law and worked as a shop steward for the country’s largest union, the National Union of Miners. He helped build the NUM from scratch and it would serve as a springboard to a far bigger stage.
He was elected general-secretary of the ANC in 1991 and played a key role in negotiations that would lead to the country’s peaceful transition to democracy. He also led the group that would draw up the country's highly-regarded constitution.
Ramaphosa put this knack for diplomacy to work in the business sphere, making millions from deals that required large companies to partner with non-white shareholders. He became one of the richest men on the continent, reaching number 42 on the Forbes list of Africa's wealthiest people with a net worth of US $450m.
But the man who played a central role in South Africa’s great struggle also has his critics.
Ramaphosa’s popularity was shaken in 2012 when 34 striking mine workers were killed by police at the Marikana platinum mine – the deadliest police killing since the Sharpville massacre of 1960.
As a non-executive director of the mine’s owner, London-listed Lonmin, Ramaphosa described the strikers as "dastardly criminal" in an email and called for a police crackdown.
He has also been criticised for his association with President Jacob Zuma. Appointed as deputy president in 2014 in an attempt to steady Zuma’s administration, Ramaphosa watched on as the President, ministers and associates were consumed by allegations of corruption and incompetence.
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Mmusi Maimane, leader of the main opposition Democratic Alliance party, said Ramaphosa was being "at best a silent deputy president, and at worst a complicit one".
His supporters argue that Ramaphosa was biding his time and revealed his hand when he won the party leadership of the ANC last December.
In a direct attack on Zuma’s time in office he told delegates, "our ability to overcome these challenges has been undermined over the last decade by a failure of leadership and misguided priorities."
Ramaphosa argued that the stakes were high: "For the first time since the advent of democracy, there is a real chance that the transformation of our country may suffer significant reverses.”
It is now the son of a Soweto policeman's task to safeguard the revolution that he helped to bring about.