{"id":219295,"date":"2018-01-15T07:37:49","date_gmt":"2018-01-15T05:37:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=219295"},"modified":"2018-01-15T07:37:49","modified_gmt":"2018-01-15T05:37:49","slug":"zumas-exit-must-not-be-humiliating-ramaphosa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/219295\/zumas-exit-must-not-be-humiliating-ramaphosa\/","title":{"rendered":"Zuma’s exit must not be humiliating: Ramaphosa"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

South Africa\u2019s ruling-party leader, Cyril Ramaphosa, said that while Jacob Zuma\u2019s government must obey the decisions of the African National Congress, he doesn\u2019t want to \u201chumiliate\u201d the president and divide the nation.<\/p>\n

Ramaphosa, speaking in a television interview broadcast Sunday by Johannesburg-based eNCA, said the ANC has to be careful about deciding on Zuma\u2019s future as the nation\u2019s leader before he is due to step down in 2019 when general elections are scheduled, calling it a \u201cvery delicate matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever we do we need to deal with this matter with the level of maturity it requires, with the proper decorum, and I will say we should never do it in a way that is going to humiliate president Zuma,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should never do it in a manner that is also going to divide the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ramaphosa, 65, said his discussions with Zuma since taking over the leadership of the ANC have gone \u201cvery, very smoothly.\u201d A commission of inquiry into allegations that Zuma oversaw \u201cstate capture\u201d by allowing members of the Gupta family to influence cabinet appointments and the award of government contracts must go ahead without delay, he said.<\/p>\n

He asserted that the ANC wields ultimate power over the government and its members.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone has to be receptive to the decisions of the ANC because that is the political center,\u201d Ramaphosa said in the interview. \u201cYou have got to accept the decisions and you also have to accept the direction that you are given by the ANC.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ramaphosa\u2019s interview was broadcast a day after his first major policy speech since winning the presidency of South Africa\u2019s dominant party at a conference last month. In the address, he vowed to fight graft, revive a struggling economy and restore investor confidence that has been eroded under Zuma\u2019s scandal-ridden administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe country is yearning to put behind all these horrible things that have to do with corruption, state capture behind us,\u201d Ramaphosa said. \u201cThe sooner these are all done the better because we want to move on, we want to move on to a better life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ramaphosa, the nation\u2019s current deputy president and one of the richest black South Africans, is a former labor-union activist, businessman and was the ANC\u2019s lead negotiator in talks to end apartheid in the 1990s.<\/p>\n

The ruling party must \u201cbegin the process of moving away from the bad practices and bad culture that has crept into the ANC,\u201d Ramaphosa said. \u201cThings such as corruption is a big thing in the ANC. It\u2019s no longer a perception; it\u2019s an issue that needs to be addressed head on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under Zuma\u2019s rule, the ANC suffered its worst-ever electoral performance in municipal elections in August 2016 when it lost control of Johannesburg, the economic hub, and Pretoria, the capital.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to renew our vows with our people, we want to reconnect with our people, we want to get our people excited again,\u201d Ramaphosa said. \u201cMany of our people are saying the ANC is back. They are rekindling their love, their affection with the ANC. We are nowhere near where we should be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Read: Ramaphosa vows to revive struggling economy<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa\u2019s ruling-party leader, Cyril Ramaphosa, said that while Jacob Zuma\u2019s government must obey the decisions of the African National Congress, he doesn\u2019t want to \u201chumiliate\u201d the president and divide the nation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":219297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-219295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219295"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":219305,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219295\/revisions\/219305"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}