Zuma congratulates Ramaphosa
President Zuma

President Zuma

JOHANNESBURG. – President Jacob Zuma yesterday congratulated new leader of the African National Congress (ANC) Cyril Ramaphosa and his “leadership collective” the National Executive Committee elected at the ruling party’s just-ended 54th National Conference held at Nasrec, Johannesburg.

“I wish to heartily congratulate Comrade President Cyril Ramaphosa for his election to lead this giant movement of our people, the ANC,” said President Zuma.

“With Comrade President Ramaphosa and his leadership collective, lies the aspirations of our people in South Africa, the region and the continent, the majority of whom are black and poor. We, therefore, wish the leadership collective all the best in taking our country forward through the policies and programmes of the ANC.”

The conference, which ended in the early hours of yesterday, also elected David Mabuza as ANC deputy president, Gwede Mantashe as national chairperson, Ace Magashule as secretary-general, Jessie Duarte as deputy secretary-general and Paul Mashatile as the treasurer-general.

President Zuma said he also noted, “with content that the spirit of unity displayed throughout the conference was carried into the election of the leadership collective”.

The president who was backing the former chair of the African Union, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, to succeed him at the helm of the party said there was “no winner or loser” in the election of leaders. He said the ANC was the “clear winner”.

President Zuma thanked and congratulated all the delegates for the outstanding discipline and determined manner in which they conducted themselves and the business of the ANC at the conference.

“The delegates have shown yet again that there is no task bigger than the ANC. But most importantly, they have demonstrated that the unity of the ANC is sacrosanct,” the president said.

“I am also certain that the policies as adopted by the conference will lead South African to prosperity through the programme of Radical Socio-Economic Transformation and a renewed onslaught on the challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality.”

Ramaphosa however, has a tenuous hold on power in the party after his allies fell short of securing outright control over its top leadership body, according to a Bloomberg report.

A lack of support from a clear majority of the 86 voting members of the ANC’s National Executive Committee will limit his scope to drive policy changes and assert his authority over President Zuma, whose second term as the nation’s leader ends in 2019.

Cyril Ramaphosa

Cyril Ramaphosa

The NEC is the ANC’s highest decision-making body in between its five-yearly national conferences. The faction led by Dr Dlamini-Zuma, probably has the loyalty of about 45 of the 86 NEC’s voting members, said Xolani Dube, a political analyst at the Xubera Institute for Research and Development in the port city of Durban.

“Cyril is a very compromised president,” Dube said yesterday by phone. “He is not running the administration of the ANC. He has got a serious problem.”

The executive committee’s composition will constrain the ability of Ramaphosa, to focus the government’s agenda on promoting economic growth, creating jobs and cracking down on corruption.

His victory over Dlamini-Zuma for the party presidency was by the smallest margin since the ANC came to power in 1994, and only two of the other top five officials elected with him are considered certain allies.

The rand weakened as much as 0.5 percent before trading little changed at 12.7161 per dollar by 4:50 p.m. in Johannesburg, bringing its gain for the past week to 6.2 percent.

Yet, Ramaphosa’s ability to deal with President Zuma and his allies shouldn’t be underestimated, according to Robert Schrire, a political science professor at the University of Cape Town.

“The power of the ANC presidency, the bandwagon effect and individual calculations have all changed. And the scope of new deals is vast,” he said. “So given that in large measure Jacob Zuma and Dlamini-Zuma are yesterday’s figures, the paradigm has shifted as well.”

In his first speech as ANC president in the early hours of yesterday, Ramaphosa pledged a crack down on graft, which has become increasingly rife during Zuma’s almost nine-year administration.

“Corruption has to come to a stop and it must happen with immediate effect,” Ramaphosa said. “We must confront the reality that critical institutions of our state have been targeted by individuals and families.”

The nation’s graft ombudsman indicated that members of the Gupta family, who are friends with President Zuma and are in business with his son, had been allowed to influence the awarding of cabinet posts and state contracts.

President Zuma and the Guptas deny wrongdoing. Ramaphosa didn’t directly link President Zuma to wrongdoing in his speech, and instead thanked him for his service to the ANC. – African News Agency/Bloomberg.

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