Cyril Ramaphosa (born November 17, 1952, Johannesburg, South Africa) is a South African activist, businessman, and politician widely credited for his role in the 1990s in the negotiations that ended South Africa’s racially discriminatory policy of apartheid and that ushered in a new era of nonracial government. He has been president of South Africa since 2018 and of the African National Congress (ANC), the ruling party, since 2017.
Early years, education, and activism
Ramaphosa was born to Samuel and Erdmuth Ramaphosa during South Africa’s racially discriminatory apartheid era. He spent his early years in Western Native Township in the Transvaal (now in Gauteng) province. In 1962 his family was forced to move to Soweto, a township just outside Johannesburg. He began attending the University of the North (now the University of Limpopo) in 1972, where he studied law. Religion, being important to Ramaphosa, led to him being heavily involved in the Student Christian Movement at both high school and university. While at the University of the North, he also joined the South African Student Organisation and engaged in activism. Ramaphosa was arrested in 1974 after organizing and attending a rally celebrating the fall of the colonial administration and the victory of Frelimo rebels in neighboring Mozambique. For 11 months he was held in solitary confinement. After his release in September 1975, he continued to be involved in activism, becoming active in the Black People’s Convention. In the months after the start of the Soweto Uprising (June 1976), Ramaphosa was again arrested and was kept in solitary confinement for six months before being released in February 1977. After several years of part-time studies and part-time work as a law clerk, Ramaphosa earned a B.Proc. degree from the University of South Africa (UNISA) in 1981.
Soon after earning his degree, Ramaphosa was hired as a legal adviser for the Council of Unions of South Africa (CUSA). He was asked by CUSA to help establish the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), and, upon its creation in 1982, he became general secretary, a position he held until 1991. Ramaphosa honed his organizational and leadership skills in this position as he focused on improving the working conditions and wages of Black miners. While working at the NUM, he helped form the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), a federation of trade unions, in 1985. He also oversaw the 1987 NUM strike, which at the time was the largest and longest-running strike in the history of South Africa’s mining industry. Although NUM did not receive the wage increase and other concessions they were striking for, the strike itself was viewed as a success for demonstrating the organizational might of the union and for laying the path for future negotiations and gains. The event also enhanced Ramaphosa’s reputation as a negotiator.
As legislated apartheid began to unravel in the early 1990s, the ANC, a Black nationalist organization that had been banned in 1960 by the white minority government, was unbanned in 1990. The following year Ramaphosa was elected to serve as the ANC’s secretary general as well as to sit on the ANC’s influential National Executive Committee (NEC). With his years of negotiating experience from union work, he was tapped to be the ANC’s chief negotiator in multiparty discussions for the country’s transition from apartheid to multiracial democracy.
The country’s first nonracial democratic elections were held in 1994 and saw Black nationalist Nelson Mandela become the country’s first Black president. Though Ramaphosa was well positioned to be chosen as Mandela’s deputy president, that post ultimately went to Thabo Mbeki, with Ramaphosa becoming a member of the National Assembly. From 1994 to 1996 he served as chairman of the Constitutional Assembly, which drafted the country’s new constitution. For his work on the widely acclaimed constitution, Ramaphosa was honored with a prestigious South African award, the Order of the Baobab in Silver, in 2009. After his work was completed on that task in 1996, he resigned from the National Assembly and from his post as secretary general of the ANC. However, he continued to be a member of the party and kept his spot on the NEC.
Business endeavors
After leaving politics, Ramaphosa focused on his business aspirations. He started out at New African Investments Ltd. (NAIL), where he was deputy executive chairman. In 2001 he founded the Shanduka Group, an investment firm which grew to have holdings in multiple business sectors, such as mining, property, finance, and fast-food franchises. He also served on the boards of many South African businesses. In time, his endeavors made him one of the country’s wealthiest businessmen. In 2004 he established the Shanduka Foundation, which provided education and business opportunities in order to foster social and economic development in the country; it was renamed the Cyril Ramaphosa Foundation in 2015.
Return to politics
In December 2012 Ramaphosa was elected deputy president of the ANC at the party’s leadership conference to serve under Jacob Zuma, who was president of the ANC as well as of South Africa. After Zuma was reelected president in May 2014, he appointed Ramaphosa as deputy president of the country. To avoid conflicts of interest, Ramaphosa stepped down from many corporate positions he held and divested from his business interests.
