South Africa’s Ramaphosa re-elected as leader of ruling ANC party

Dec 19,2022:South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has been re-elected leader of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party despite being mired in scandal and facing calls to step down as president.
Delegates at an ANC leadership conference voted on Monday to keep Ramaphosa as head of the party with 2,476 voting for him and 1,897 selecting his rival, former Health Minister Zweli Mkhize.
The result was welcomed by the president’s supporters who burst into celebrations as the results were announced in Johannesburg.
The vote is a welcome victory for Ramaphosa. Last week, he survived a vote to start impeachment proceedings against him after a parliamentary report said he might have broken anti-corruption laws by keeping large undeclared amounts of dollars at his farm and failing to declare their theft.
Ramaphosa’s victory paves the way for him to run for a second term as president in 2024.
Ramaphosa and the newly elected ANC leadership have many challenges to address as South Africa experiences crippling power cuts of more than seven hours a day, an unemployment rate of 35 percent and reports of widespread corruption.
Ramaphosa admitted that his government was partly to blame for the electricity crisis when he spoke at the opening of the conference on Friday. He promised that his government would ensure an adequate supply of electricity by purchasing more renewable energy over the next few years.
Ramaphosa also pledged that his government would continue to fight corruption, even as he was embroiled in a corruption scandal.