Cyril Ramaphosa, 65, South Africa’s deputy president, has been elected as the new leader of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), narrowly beating Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma at the party’s conference on Monday. Ramaphosa won 2,440 votes to Dlamini-Zuma’s 2,261.
The ANC announced on Monday that Ramaphosa had defeated Dlamini-Zuma, the former chairperson of the African Union Commission and President Jacob Zuma’s preferred candidate, to become the leader of Africa’s oldest liberation movement. More than 4,700 delegates cast their ballot in a marathon voting session that began late on Sunday and continued until mid-morning on Monday.
He will replace Zuma as ANC president and almost certainly run for the country’s presidency in 2019.
Zuma will remain as South Africa’s president until then, but it is possible that Ramaphosa and the new national executive may recall him over a series of allegations of corruption that has dogged his tenure as president.
