The incoming Top Seven of the ANC sees a return of three members, with four new arrivals. We take a look at the new team at the top of the ruling party.
President: Cyril Ramaphosa
Margin of victory: 579 votes
Potted political bio: 70-year-old Ramaphosa was born in Soweto and cut his teeth in student activism and union politics. Trained as a lawyer, he rose to be the general secretary of South Africa’s largest union, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). During the transition to democracy, Ramaphosa played a key role in negotiations, but his tenure in post-apartheid politics was short-lived. Leaving the political fray in 1996, Ramaphosa entered the business world and became fabulously wealthy through his investment in corporations as diverse as MTN, McDonald’s and Lonmin. In 2012 he made an unexpected return to active politics and won the deputy president role at the ANC conference in Mangaung, serving as DP for former president Jacob Zuma’s second term. He narrowly wrested power from Zuma at the ANC’s 2017 conference at Nasrec, and has served as ANC and country president since February 2018.
His win at the 2022 conference means he will now serve a second term — although whether he will finish it is less certain.
Best known for: Founding the National Union of Mineworkers, being the leading ANC negotiator at Codesa, heading the team which drafted the SA Constitution, his role behind the scenes in the Marikana massacre and allegedly being Nelson Mandela’s anointed political heir.
Major scandals: Having weathered controversy regarding campaign funding for his last presidential run, CR enters his second term weakened by the ongoing Phala Phala scandal, which remains a major beating stick for use by his opponents.
Political style: Conflict averse; over-conciliatory; pro-business; incremental reforms; non-racialism.
Deputy President: Paul Mashatile
Margin of victory: 320 votes
Potted political bio: 60-year-old Mashatile hails from the township of Alexandra, in Johannesburg, an environment which has profoundly shaped his life. He is one of a cohort of energetic political activists to emerge from Alex in the late 1970s and 80s, many of whom have gone on to powerful positions in business and Gauteng politics. Mashatile’s first influential posts were in the Gauteng government in the mid to late 1990s: he held almost every MEC (provincial minister) role available in Gauteng, before ascending (briefly) to the top job of Gauteng premier in 2008. Fearing his influence over the province, Zuma moved Mashatile to the ANC Siberia — ...