JOHANNESBURG – New ANC leader Cyril Ramaphosa said on Tuesday the “Top Six” of South Africa’s ruling party comprised politicians from different sides of its ideological divides and he expected the party to emerge from this week’s leadership conference stronger.
Analysts have warned that the party’s top decision-making group could fail to agree on policy, with three politicians apiece drawn from the Ramaphosa camp and that of his rival, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.
“The leadership that has been chosen is a unity leadership,” Ramaphosa told reporters at the conference. “It’s a leadership that combines different views and approaches that were prevalent in the conference prior to the election.”
Policy Shift
The election of South African Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa as the new leader of ruling African National Congress (ANC) opens up tentative prospects of a policy shift and rise in business confidence, ratings agency Moody’s said on Tuesday.
Moody’s lead sovereign analyst for South Africa, Zuzana Brixiova, said that in his campaign Ramaphosa “articulated a number of broad reform priorities which would, if implemented, begin to address weaknesses flagged when Moody’s placed South Africa’s Baa3 rating on review for downgrade in November 2017”.
