Ramaphosa struggles to deliver on ANC’s delayed promises
Demonstrators carry a placard referring to President Cyril Ramaphosa buying a buffalo for millions of rand. The workers were taking part in a national strike on April 25, 2018 in Johannesburg. PHOTO | AFP
With President Cyril Ramaphosa approaching the 100-day mark as South Africa’s fifth post-apartheid leader, he faces what amounts to a “mission impossible” in the form of multiple, contending priorities to put the country back on a growth path and avoid increasing social tensions and political strife.
Indicative of the almost insurmountable obstacles facing President Ramaphosa are the recent national bus drivers’ strike, which ran for almost a month and disrupted business and commerce, a full-scale “rolling mass action” stay-away by one of the country’s largest union bodies representing 800,000 members, numerous land invasions and consequent police action, some of which was violent, plus dysfunction in both his ruling African National Congress (ANC) party and provincial governance in three of the country’s nine provinces.
