NATASHA MARRIAN: Cyril Ramaphosa's lessons from Deng in step with Madiba
President Cyril Ramaphosa concedes that his leadership style is greatly influenced by former president Nelson Mandela. He also revealed last week that he is reading about and is clearly an admirer of Deng Xiaoping, the former Chinese Communist Party leader credited with the restoration of China by propelling it on a path to recovery and economic pre-eminence in the late 1970s after the cultural revolution. Combined, the qualities of these leaders appear to stitch together the leadership style of SA’s fifth democratic president. While assessments of Ramaphosa’s first 100 days in office, marked last Saturday, have generally been glowing, there are some within the ANC and society who feel he has not been decisive enough. This is blamed largely on his narrow victory over Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma at Nasrec, and the continued presence and influence of her faction and that of former president Jacob Zuma on the ANC and government, through the mixed bag of people elected to top party structure...
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