SOUTH AFRICA

ANC begins accepting applications for party leader

July 1, 2017

The African National Congress begins accepting applications for party leader, who will be the president of the country – if the party wins the parliamentary election in 2019.

The legislature indirectly elects the president for a 5-year term, and the choice of the country’s next president might not be the ANC’s. In Aug 2016 the party – which assumed power in 1994 under Nelson Mandela after the end of apartheid – recorded its worst-ever local election results.

The party leader will be chosen at the ANC elective conference in December, when President Jacob Zuma is expected to step down – if he hasn’t been removed before then. The BBC notes that his political career was written off in the run-up to the 2009 election when he was simultaneously battling allegations of rape and corruption. He was acquitted of rape, though the corruption case has proved harder to shake off. In March Zuma applied for leave to appeal after the North Gauteng high court found that the decision not to charge him for corruption was "irrational".

The main contenders for party leader are African Union chair Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa.

#22220 Published: June 23, 2017