THE African National Congress, ANC, held a contentious, but non-confrontational conference and elections on December 18 in which Cyril Ramaphosa defeated Nkosazana Dlamnin-Zuma by a 179-vote majority. There were no serious contentious issues; it was primarily a choice of personalities and the election itself is unlikely to lead to any serious internal crisis or changes.
This is unlike the December 18, 2007 elections in which then Deputy President Jacob Zuma took on incumbent President Thabo Mbeki. That was a bruising encounter. Ordinarily, Zuma was no favourite to wrest power from Mabeki. He had been accused of rape, racketeering, and $5 Billion corruption in a 1999 arms scandal. However, President Mbeki seemed to have become paranoia and quite intolerant of a number of ANC leaders. He eventually lost the support of power blocs in the ANC like the Women…
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