Ramaphosa headed for stormy seas

The African National Congress (ANC) has a new leader. The question is whether Cyril Ramaphosa is the next President of South Africa. In other words, will Ramaphosa lead the ANC to victory in the national election in 2019, and will the ANC recoup the electoral losses it suffered in the last two elections? Whether it can is contingent on the quality of leadership Ramaphosa will provide and the state of the ruling past after last year’s fifty-fourth national conference, at which he succeeded Jacob Zuma as the landlord of Luthuli House. To the extent that unity was the dominant theme in the lead-up to the national conference, is Ramaphosa equal to the task of uniting the ANC behind his leadership and is he going to succeed in recreating this factionalised organism in his image? Put differently, how much of Zuma’s ANC will be in the belly of Rmaphosa’s ANC? Are the digestive juices in the belly of Ramaphosa’s ANC strong enough to dissolve Zuma’s ANC?