By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
President Cyril Ramaphosa says he went through a rigorous interviewing process to be the African National Congress (ANC)’s presidential candidate in this year’s election.
Ramaphosa said the panel of ten went as far as to inquire about his financial situation.
A senior ANC leader said: They wanted to be comfortable that the president’s sources of income were legit and that if there’s any scandal to hit, they have records of what he presented to them.
Ramaphosa said, that he was happy to hand over his financials to the ANC electoral committee.
After an independent panel report found in 2022 that he may have a case to answer over the theft of US dollars from his Phala Phala farm, it was said Ramaphosa was ready to throw in the towel on his presidency.
But speaking at the Cape Town Press Club on Thursday, Ramaphosa displayed an air of confidence that he will most definitely be back after this year’s election.
“Despite the predictions of many in media circles and political analysts and so forth, yes you will see me back in the very position that I occupy.”
The ANC has been in government ever since the end of the apartheid system of racial segregation in 1994, but its reputation as South Africa’s liberator has been eroded and its support has gradually declined.
Rmaphosa is now seeking a second and final five-year term in elections which must happen between May and August.
The ANC is still widely expected to win the largest share of votes in South Africa’s seventh all-race national elections since the downfall of apartheid.
But if it drops below 50%, it would need to enter into a coalition to remain in government and keep Ramaphosa for a second term. South Africans vote for political parties and not individual candidates. Parties are assigned seats in Parliament according to their share of the vote and lawmakers then elect the president, which has always been the leader of the ANC since 1994 because of its majority.
Meanwhile the ANC is set to deploy its strongest artillery in former president Thabo Mbeki to the Western Cape as part of its plan to ensure the DA electoral support drops below 50% in the coming elections.
The ANC won only 32% of the vote against 46% in 2009, marking the first time the ruling party has been ousted from provincial government at the polls. The Democratic Alliance (DA) won an absolute majority in the Western Cape with 51% of the vote, nearly double its score in 2004.
Western Cape, the country’s richest province, has always been different because of its racial make-up: 4.2 million people are classed as “coloured” – mixed-race – against about 1.2 million black and 1 million white people.