Cyril Ramaphosa Wins A.N.C. Leadership Battle in South Africa<br />But party leaders have been alarmed at the A.N.C.’s rapid decline and Mr. Zuma is so widely discredited<br />that party leaders could replace him with Mr. Ramaphosa before the 2019 elections to improve the A.N.C.’s chances.<br />" Gwede Mantashe, the A.N.C.’s secretary general and a Ramaphosa ally, said as voting<br />was taking place on Monday. that We don’t want to be relegated to a rural party,<br />With his victory on Monday, Mr. Ramaphosa is almost certain to become South Africa’s next president,<br />thanks to the A.N.C.’s dominance in Parliament, which chooses the nation’s leader.<br />After a fierce and tight race that exposed the stark divisions in the party, the A.N.C.’s 4,708 delegates<br />voted by a margin of 179 ballots for Mr. Ramaphosa, 65, currently South Africa’s deputy president.<br />Mr. Zuma, who will cease to be party leader this week but whose term as the country’s president does not end until 2019, will leave his successor a number of problems, but one above all: a once-heroic liberation party<br />that has now become associated with graft, cronyism and incompetence and that has been losing core supporters.<br />18, 2017<br />JOHANNESBURG — In a humbling rebuke to President Jacob Zuma of South Africa, the African National Congress chose an anti-apartheid hero<br />and business tycoon as its new leader on Monday, positioning him to become Mr. Zuma’s successor.
