Cyril Ramaphosa has been chosen as the new South African President by lawmakers on Thursday after Jacob Zuma’s scandalous resignation under pressure from his own ANC ruling party.
Chief justice Mogoeng Mogoeng told the assembly at a special sitting of the parliament in Cape Town, Ramaphosa was chosen without a vote after being the only candidate nominated. The announcement brought a spirit of camaraderie witnessed by the loud cheers by the assembled from the ANC lawmakers.
Zuma resigned on Wednesday as the ANC finally turned against him after a nine-year reign dominated by corruption scandals, economic slowdown and plummeting electoral popularity.
Zuma initially pushed against the ANC for “recalling” him from office before he was threatened to be ousted via a parliament no-confidence vote.
In an earlier TV interview on Wednesday, Zuma said he had received “very unfair” treatment from the party that he joined in 1959 and in which he had fought for decades against apartheid white-minority rule.
Zuma and Ramaphosa, his deputy president had been engaged in a power struggle.
However, Zuma’s hold over the ANC was broken in December when his chosen successor his former wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma narrowly lost to Ramaphosa in a vote to become the new party leader.
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