Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa
President Jacob Zuma announced his resignation with immediate effect on 14 February 2018. In a 30-minute televised address from the Union Buildings in Pretoria, 75-year-old Zuma said: "Even though I disagree with the decision of the leadership of my organisation, I have always been a disciplined member of the ANC. I have therefore come to the decision to resign as president of the republic with immediate effect." Zuma's statement came after the ANC gave him an ultimatum to resign or be recalled in a letter delivered by the party's secretary general Ace Magashul. The ANC announced that their MPs would vote with opposition parties in support of a motion of no confidence against Zuma.
ANC leader Cyril Ramaphosa called a meeting of the party's national executive for 12 February 2018 to discuss Zuma's position as president of the country "with care and purpose" as Ramaphosa and his allies lobby for Zuma to step down. “Our people want this matter finalized. The National Executive Committee will be doing precisely that. We know you want closure on this matter," Ramaphosa told a crowd of supporters in Cape Town.
South African vice president Cyril Ramaphosa won the ANC party leadership election 18 December 2017, boosting his chances of succeeding Jacob Zuma as the president of the country. The 65-year-old was contesting the party’s top post against former African Union Commission chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who hoped to become the first woman leader of the ruling party, and possibly the first female South African president. He garnered 2440 votes to Dlamini-Zuma’s 2261. He received huge backing from the country’s largest trade union COSATU and the National Union of Mineworkers. Should he go on to win the 2019 presidential election, Ramaphosa will become South Africa’s fifth president.
Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa [ SIH-rehl rah-mah-POH-sah], a self-made millionaire who is one of South Africa’s richest men, was appointed the Deputy President of the Republic of South Africa on 25 May 2014. Ramaphosa was appointed Chairman of the National Planning Commission on 3 June 2014. In December 2012, he was elected Deputy President of the African National Congress (ANC). There are about 170 McDonald's fast-food restaurants in South Africa. And every one of them is owned by Ramaphosa.
Ramaphosa is a former union leader turned businessman, and served as chairman of the assembly that drafted the nation’s progressive constitution. As a union leader, he led the nation’s largest-ever strike in 1987. Today, he’s among South Africa’s richest men, with an estimated wealth of $675 million. He also does not grant many interviews. He is widely recognised as a successful businessman and respected politician and commended for his humility.
Ramaphosa was born in Soweto on 17 November 1952. Ramaphosa is the second of the three children of Erdmuth and Samuel Ramaphosa, a retired policeman. Ramaphosa completed his schooling at Mphaphuli High School in Sibasa, South Africa in 1971. He holds a law degree from the University of South Africa obtained in 1981. Ramaphosa has also received several honorary doctorates from local and international universities, including the University of Massachusetts, the University of Cape Town, the National University of Lesotho, the University of KwaZulu-Natal, and the University of the North.
Ramaphosa began his studies at the University of the North in 1972, where he became involved in student politics, joining the South African Student Organisation (SASO) and the Black People's Convention (BPC). His credentials for the struggle against apartheid can be traced to his activism in student politics at the University of the North (now University of Limpopo).
He was detained in 1974 for organising pro-Frelimo rallies that were held to celebrate the independence of Mozambique. He was detained for the second time in 1976 following the Soweto student uprising and later imprisoned. However, no amount of intimidation by the security forces could deter him from pursuing the noble objective of fighting for a free and democratic South Africa.
After completing his law studies in 1981, Ramaphosa joined the Council of Unions of South Africa (CUSA) as a legal advisor. When the government and the Chamber of Mines announced their decision to allow black mine workers to join unions, CUSA propelled Ramaphosa into establishing the National Union of Mine-workers (NUM) in 1982, which mobilised extensively against oppression. In the eyes of many black mine workers, he was a true compatriot who fought for the transformation of labour relations in the mining industry under the apartheid government. The union that was to become "a thorn in the flesh of mine bosses" had very humble beginnings. There were no funds to run the union and recruiting was difficult as mine bosses would not allow meetings to take place on mine premises. Ramaphosa, clad in a black leather jacket, would move around the goldfields at weekends, recruiting mine workers.
Fearlessly, he steered NUM to focus its campaigns on wages and working conditions for black mining workers. In effect, the union won scores of significant victories through bargaining and the courts. Understanding the need to stand up against the oppressors, Ramaphosa led NUM to a three-week strike in 1987 after a wage deadlock with the Chamber of Mines. The strike saw a halt in production at half of South Africa’s gold mines and at least one-fifth of the coal mines. This cost the industry millions of rands a day as this sector largely depended on its black work force. His achievements in the NUM include growing the union’s membership from 6 000 in 1982 to 300 000 in 1992. Ramaphosa was elected to the position of general secretary, a position he held until he resigned from the union in 1991 (following his election to SG of the ANC).
In 1991, he was elected ANC secretary-general and subsequently became head of the ANC team that negotiated the transition to democracy. When Nelson Mandela was released from prison, Cyril Ramaphosa was on the National Reception Committee. Following a long and intensive history in student and trade-union politics, and playing a leading role in the Mass Democratic Movement that preceded the unbanning of the African National Congress (ANC), Ramaphosa hit the headlines as he introduced Nelson Mandela to the thousands of supporters outside the Cape Town City Hall, where Nelson Mandela delivered his first public speech in 30 years.
In July 1991, the ANC held its first conference after the unbanning of the liberation movements. Ramaphosa was elected secretary general of the ANC. He became part of the leadership core that emerged from this conference with a mandate to negotiate a new Constitution with the then National Party (NP) government. In this regard, he rose to prominence for his role as head of the ANC delegation that negotiated the end of apartheid with the government in November 1991. After the first democratic election in 1994, he became a member of Parliament and was later elected chairperson of the Constitutional Assembly where he worked tirelessly; and built a partnership with his NP counterpart, Roelf Meyer, in what was to be a long-time symbolism of reconciliation and collaboration for the common good.
Ramaphosa has impeccable ANC credentials: he has served the party for decades and once aspired to be deputy president under Nelson Mandela. When that didn’t happen, he refused to serve in Mandela’s cabinet. Many South Africans saw him as the most credible politician of the post-Mandela generation, and were disappointed when Ramaphosa withdrew from politics to become a businessman.
In 2007 most discounted Cyril Ramaphosa's chances of succeeding Mbeki as ANC President, despite his unmatched respect from both grassroots and ANC leaders and widespread agreement that he would make a solid ANC President. Some party elders broke with the tradition of solving problems behind closed doors. Instead, they publicly entreated Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma to step aside and allow others, such as businessman Cyril Ramaphosa, to step forward.
Three different explanations were commonly cited in explaining Ramaphosa's lack of momentum: (1) he naively played by the rules by not campaigning while others campaigned extensively; (2) he had been actively thwarted by Mbeki who did not trust or like him; and, (3) he did not have strong presidential aspirations. The truth probably lay in a combination of all three: or perhaps he really meant it when he said he didn't want the job and wasn't running. Ramaphosa diligently obeyed the ANC's mantra that the party picks its leader, not the other way around, but had been left in Mbeki's, Zuma's, and Tokyo Sexwale's dust in the meantime.
After he lost the race to become President of South Africa to Thabo Mbeki, he resigned from his political positions in January 1997 and moved to the private sector. He was the executive chairperson of Shanduka Group, which he founded in 2001. Ramaphosa became the First Deputy Chairperson of Commonwealth Business Council. He served as the deputy chairperson of the National Planning Commission from 2010 until 2014.
Ramaphosa sat on the board of Lonmin, the platinum mining giant where police shot and killed 34 striking miners in 2012. Some of Ramaphosa’s e-mails to government officials came under scrutiny in the inquiry into the Lonmin killings. The commission revealed that Ramaphosa sent an email to Lonmin management and government officials in which he said the events around the strike were "plainly dastardly criminal acts and must be characterized as such." Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema accused Ramaphosa of having a hand in the 2012 killing. The final inquiry report absolved Ramaphosa.
Ramaphosa received the Olof Palme prize in Stockholm in 1987 and was included among the Time's 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2007. In 2009, Ramaphosa was awarded the National Order of the Baobab in Silver by President Jacob Zuma for his contribution to the multiparty negotiations and for chairing the Constitutional Assembly to draft the new Constitution.
He is married to Dr Tshepo Motsepe and they have four children. Ramaphosa made a dramatic confession about an extramarital affair, as he moves to clear his name amid signs of a dirty tricks campaign to derail his bid for the ANC presidency. In an exclusive interview with the Sunday Times 01 September 2017, Ramaphosa said the affair, with a Limpopo doctor had ended eight years ago. "I had a relationship with only one person and it ended. I dealt with it with my wife. We now have a professional relationship." Ramaphosa said some of the other seven women named as his "girlfriends" in a document circulated on social media this week were in fact students he and his wife, Tshepo Motsepe, were assisting financially. "I am not a blesser. My wife and I support 54 young people every month - 30 females and 24 males. We are transforming people's lives." ‘Blessers’ are said to be like Sugar Daddies but richer. The term describes someone, usually an older man with a lot of money, who provides things like money, expensive gifts and luxurious trips to young women in exchange for sexual favours.
Ramaphosa was widely seen as the ANC presidential hopeful for the party's "anti-Zuma" camp. The other front-runner to lead the ANC was Zuma's ex-wife, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who was widely seen as having the president's support. Whoever led the party ahead of 2019 elections would almost certainly become South Africa's next president.
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