More than 30 years after the Berlin Wall came down, leaders of the African National Congress (ANC), South Africa’s long-time ruling party, still refer to each other as ‘comrade’. Unless, that is, you’re seen as a problem.
‘Comrade Cyril Ramaphosa will be here,’ ANC secretary general Fikile Mbabula told journalists on Sunday morning as he explained how, around 5 p.m., the President would receive the final election results at the main counting centre between Johannesburg and the capital, Pretoria. ‘There’s nothing to celebrate in terms of performance of the ANC,’ he said.
Zuma has come away with 14.6 per cent of the vote but still claims it was rigged against him
It sounds weird referring to the billionaire Ramaphosa as ‘comrade’, as if he were some commissar from Cuba or the former Soviet Union – both of which had backed the ANC when it challenged white minority rule in South Africa. Before taking the presidency, Ramaphosa ran the McDonalds burger chain in South Africa and held shares in some of the country’s largest mining firms.
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