Even at noon in Alexandra, few had heard the news that Jacob Zuma had resigned.
Though Cyril Ramaphosa, Zuma’s replacement as South Africa’s president, was only hours from being sworn in as the country’s new head of state, a combination of steady rain and disillusionment dampened any excitement in the crowded and poor township on Johannesburg’s ragged northern outskirts.
Lucky Mabule, a petrol pump attendant, said it was good news that Zuma was gone because maybe inflation might ease. Prices of many staples in South Africa have soared in recent years – one reason for the flagging popularity of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and its leadership.
“Cyril Ramaphosa is a good guy but he is from the ANC, too. So the same robbers stay where they were. I don’t know how much he can change really. The rich will get richer and the poor get poorer,” Mabule, 34, said.
For Happy Mdwava, an Alexandra resident who has been unemployed for several years, the best option for South Africa was to search overseas.
“Maybe we could find a president in the US who could come here. These guys here are too old. They have too many scandals. If we are going to have a politician from here, then we need a woman or a young person. We just need someone new,” Mdwava, 38, said.
Ramaphosa, 65, is 10 years younger than Zuma. In the 1980s, the lawyer-turned-labour leader played a key role in mobilising mine workers against the racist apartheid regime. Though he left politics to become a wealthy businessman, Ramaphosa has long been tipped for high office.
For the moment, however, most South Africans are prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. Some even talk of the “Cyril Spring”.
“It’s a new day. Let’s see if it brings anything different,” said Brenda Ndlovu, 35, a junior administrator who commutes from Alexandra to work in Sandton, the wealthy business and residential zone which boasts of being “Africa’s richest square mile”.
Among the banks and luxury malls, there was no love for Zuma and mixed feelings about Ramaphosa. Shoppers, workers and officials said that the departure of the former president was long overdue, but his replacement, though a successful businessman himself, would have difficulty “turning South Africa around”.
An editorial in Business Day, a respected newspaper, was effusive however.
“It is with an overwhelming sense of joy and relief that SA can say goodbye to Jacob Zuma. There is no other way to greet his departure than to say: ‘Good riddance’… We can be glad that it is Ramaphosa who will be at the helm this time,” it said.
Ramaphosa has a reputation of being more respectful of the media, independent institutions such as the judiciary and civil society than many senior ANC officials.
Some activists raised concerns about the new president’s role in the Marikana massacre in 2012, when 34 striking miners were shot dead by police. Ramaphosa was a director of the miners’ employers and sent emails interpreted by some as encouraging violence by police against strikers. He has since apologised.
“I am very anxious about the way he is being shown as a saviour … There is a disturbing pattern of behaviour that we should really be concerned about,” said Koketso Moeti, a campaigner.
Rehad Desai, a spokesperson of the Marikana Support Campaign, said the election of Ramaphosa reflected “the political decline of the ANC”, adding: “It is a movement in clear regression from its values. It’s a deeply moribund organisation and Ramaphosa reflects that.”
There is much residual support for the ruling party, however, even among those too young to remember the role that the party, in power since 1994, played in the “liberation struggle”.
Khomaleno Segale, a 28-year-old IT technician from Alexandra, said she would never vote for opposition parties. “Better the devil we know than the devil we don’t. I am optimistic for South Africa. We just have to hope that we go forward not backwards,” she said.
