Cyril Ramaphosa is the current president of South Africa. He was elected to succeed Jacob Zuma on 15th February 2018.
Who is President Cyril Ramaphosa?
Cyril Ramaphosa is the President of South Africa since 2018. He is a trade union leader, an anti-apartheid activist, and a businessman.
Cyril Ramaphosa was born in Soweto on 19 December 1952. He studied law at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, where he was involved with the Black Peoples Convention and became a member of its executive committee. In 1978, Ramaphosa became Secretary General of the National Union of Mine Workers and subsequently led negotiations for their merger with another union to form the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM).
In 1984, he co-founded and served as chairman for Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), which became one of South Africa’s most successful investment companies. In 1994, he founded Shanduka Group Limited to invest in mining and industrial manufacturing companies in Africa. As an anti-apartheid activist, Ramaphosa was arrested several times during his activism from 1976 to 1990.
What does the president of South Africa do?
The president is the head of state and commander-in-chief of the armed forces. The president has a lot of responsibilities.
The president is elected by a vote from members of the National Assembly and they serve for five years. They are then eligible for re-election, but they cannot serve over two terms.
The President is a member of parliament, but they are not allowed to vote or to speak in parliament because they have no parliamentary immunity. Even though the president does not have parliamentary immunity, it would be quite difficult to impeach them because there is no legal mechanism for doing so.
The President chairs Cabinet meetings and has the power to appoint ministers, who run government departments and implement policy decisions made by Cabinet. The President also appoints ambassadors, who represent their country abroad and can negotiate with foreign governments on behalf of South Africa’s interests in international affairs.
