Ramaphosa wins ANC leadership vote

Bloomberg

Cyril Ramaphosa comfortably won re-election as head of South Africa’s governing party just weeks after a scandal threatened to derail his political career, and now faces an uphill battle to rebuild its flagging support heading into a national vote in 2024.
Rampahosa allies also won most of the African National Congress’s (ANC) other six top party positions, giving him a firmer hold over the party. The outcome should reassure investors that his administration will continue with reforms to revive the stuttering economy. The rand gained as much as 2.8% against the dollar.
Ramaphosa, 70, garnered 2,476 votes to secure a second five-year term at the party’s helm, and former Health Minister Zweli Mkhize 1,897.
He considered quitting as the nation’s president earlier this month after an independent panel denounced his handling of the theft of foreign currency that was stuffed in a sofa at his game farm, but later backtracked and denied wrongdoing.
The results were announced by Kgalema Motlanthe, the ANC’s head of elections, at a party conference on the outskirts of Johannesburg.
Paul Mashatile, previously the ANC’s treasurer-general, easily won the deputy leader post. He beat Justice Minister Ronald Lamola and Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane, who were both preferred by the
president’s camp.
But Ramaphosa allies Gwede Mantashe and Fikile Mbalula were respectively chosen as ANC chairman and secretary-general. The other three top positions all went to women, with Gwen Ramokgopa elected treasurer-general, and Nomvula Mokonyane and Maropene Ramokgopa as the two deputy secretary-generals.
“Five out of seven candidates voted in the top seven
positions belong to President Ramaphosa’s camp, which will help him strengthen his grip on the party,” Cristian Maggio, the head of portfolio and ESG Strategy at TD Securities in London, said in a note to clients.
Support for the 110-year-old ANC, which has ruled South Africa since the end of apartheid in 1994, dropped below 50% for the first time in a local government vote last year, and several opinion polls show it’s in danger of losing its national majority
in 2024. Ramaphosa is one of the country’s most seasoned politicians.