WILLIAM SAUNDERSON-MEYER: What Ramaphosa must do next
'The issue that most occupies ordinary South African, according to the pollsters, is corruption involving the Gupta family – cronies and benefactors of Zuma'
After a bruising battle that engaged ordinary South Africans in a manner reminiscent of the heady combination of fear and hope that galvanized the country after Nelson Mandela was released from 27 years of incarceration in 1990, his ruling African National Congress has chosen a new leader to try to lift the country’s veil of sleaze. Cyril Ramaphosa, at present serving as a deputy to the controversial and widely despised President Jacob Zuma, is now the shoo-in as the party’s candidate to become South Africa’s next president in 2019, should the ANC win that general election. Publicly embraced as the anti-corruption savior of a country deeply divided by the sleaze of Zuma’s two-term administration, Ramaphosa’s victory finally dashes Zuma’s hopes of installing his former wife, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, as his successor. Had Zuma been able to pull off a dynastic succession, he would likely have lifted, for once and for all, the threat of 783 charges of fraud and corruption that he has bee...
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