JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — In a palace coup meant to keep the ruling African National Congress in power, Cyril Ramaphosa officially replaced scandal-plagued President Jacob Zuma on Thursday, pledging to lawmakers and voters to pursue a policy of clean government and inclusiveness.
But with barely a year before the next election and the delicate question of how to handle Mr. Zuma’s legal woes still to be addressed, it’s suddenly a much more question of whether the ANC can maintain the grip on power it has had since leading the fight to end racial apartheid a quarter-century ago.
A shadow was cast over Thursday’s proceedings, perhaps a sign of things to come. Mr. Ramaphosa was overwhelmingly confirmed as president only after the two main opposition parties abstained from the National Assembly vote, saying the ANC has been indelibly tarnished by the corruption scandals that marked Mr. Zuma’s decade in power.
The Economic Freedom Fighters, the smaller of the two opposition parties, even staged a walkout before the presidential vote. The party said the vote was illegitimate because South Africa’s top court had ruled that lawmakers failed to hold Mr. Zuma to account in a scandal over state-funded upgrades to his private home.
The ruling party is “incapable of fighting corruption and maladministration from within its own ranks,” said Julius Malema, the opposition party’s leader, according to The Associated Press.
With South Africa’s business community strongly welcoming the change, Mr. Ramaphosa, 65, tried to strike a conciliatory note by saying he saw himself as a “servant of the people.” He became the heir apparent to Mr. Zuma when he ran a hotly contested race to chair the ANC in December.
“I will try very hard not to disappoint the people of South Africa,” said Mr. Ramaphosa, a veteran of the apartheid struggle and one of the country’s richest men. He said the issues of corruption and mismanagement are on “our radar screen” and that one of his first aims would be to meet rival party leaders so “we can try and find a way of working together,” AP reported.
But he also said some of the opposition’s staged protests Thursday amounted to grandstanding.
Defiance and reluctance
On Wednesday, a reluctant and at times defiant Mr. Zuma gave a rambling resignation speech on national television. As he spoke, several of his business associates were in custody on charges of money laundering and financial misconduct. The ousted president has never been convicted and always declared his innocence.
His fall was prompted by a vote within the governing body of the ANC recalling him as its candidate for the top job. The party was widely seen as acting out of fears that Mr. Zuma’s personal problems could drag down the entire party in upcoming elections. It wanted to cut the unpopular president loose before parliament could organize a vote of no confidence.
One problem for President Ramaphosa and ANC leaders is that they have repeatedly defended Mr. Zuma against attacks, blocking opposition motions of no confidence and delaying investigations into reported abuses of state funds.
It remains to be seen whether the new leader can restore the ANC’s low standing in the polls and persuade international rating agencies such as Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s to reverse recent downgrades.
Still, there was no denying a sense of relief on the streets of the country at the transfer of power.
As Mr. Ramaphosa took the oath of office, commuters in this country of 55 million people — beset by high levels of poverty and unemployment — cheered while cars and taxis blew their horns.
There were no street marches as happened when authoritarian President Robert Mugabe in neighboring Zimbabwe was overthrown in November, but it was hard to find words of sympathy for Mr. Zuma.
“It is a new start,” Martha Tambane, a mother of two, said at a taxi queue in the expensive suburb of Sandton where many of the ANC’s top officers have their mansions. “If we can stop the government robbing us, maybe this can be a better place to live.”
Mrs. Tambane said she starts work at 7 a.m. six days a week and earns the equivalent of $160 per month cleaning houses.
“I voted for Zuma in the beginning, but he has sold us out,” she said. “I don’t know if I can vote again for the ANC.”
Market rebound
Mr. Ramaphosa began his career as a mine worker, served in the trade union movement and then became a successful businessman, amassing billions of dollars in assets. But he is seen as a far more attractive face for the country in the global marketplace, as South Africa strives to boost levels of foreign investment and aid.
Both the stock exchange and the local currency unit, the rand, jumped in value in the minutes after Mr. Ramaphosa was voted in.
There are some signs that Mr. Ramaphosa has eased some of the divisions within the ANC related to the polarizing Mr. Zuma. Fears of a split within the party have waned, and the party has stood firm against calls from Zuma supporters for any kind of immunity from prosecution.
Still, Mr. Zuma retains a core of supporters, particularly in his native KwaZulu-Natal province, and an aggressive prosecution of the former president could exacerbate the strains.
If Mr. Ramaphosa has a political honeymoon, it is likely to be short. He will need to unite the ANC, rebuild its credibility with voters — it was battered in recent local elections in Johannesburg and the capital, Pretoria — and deal with levels of youth unemployment ranging from 30 percent to 60 percent depending on how the numbers are measured.
He is set to deliver the State of the Nation speech Friday, an address delayed by the lengthy closed-door ANC deliberations this week that finally induced Mr. Zuma to resign. The occasion will feature policy and pomp, including a military parade, a 21-gun salute and more than 1,100 guests, according to AP.
Some voters say the new president may not appreciate how desperate the situation has become for many.
Atwell Chauke, 26, sells charger kits for cellphones. He views himself as unemployed, his vending a stopgap until he can find a job. Official figures count him as part of the workforce, but he strongly disagrees.
“This is not a job,” he said as Mr. Ramaphosa’s speech to parliament boomed from the radio of a nearby minibus. “I don’t even own these chargers. I sell them for another man, and I get some small money for each one. But it is not enough to live.”
He sleeps in one room with five other men, all of them either looking for work or barely making a living by selling goods.
“The problem in South Africa is not one man or one party,” he said. “It’s people like me. I have been [out of] school for eight years, and I can’t say I’ve ever had a real job. But I’m still looking.”
Rural areas are even worse for poverty and a lack of opportunity. Since Nelson Mandela led the country to democracy in 1994, millions of young men and women have moved to town in search of a better life.
“We will wait to see,” Mr. Chauke said of the new president. “But for me, I am not expecting anything to change.”
⦁ This article is based in part on wire service reports.
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