Cyril Ramaphosa

We must [...] draft a constitution that will be fully legitimate, a constitution that will represent the aspirations of our people.

Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa (born 17 November 1952) is a South African politician serving as President of South Africa since 2018 and President of the African National Congress (ANC) since 2017. Previously an anti-apartheid activist, trade union leader and businessman, Ramaphosa served as Deputy President to President Jacob Zuma and Chairman of the National Planning Commission from 2014 to 2018.

Quotes

• It is therefore important that as we put our vision to the country, we should do so directly, knowing that people out there want to be part of the process and will be responding, because in the end the drafting of the constitution must not be the preserve of the 490 members of this Assembly. It must be a constitution which they feel they own, a constitution that they know and feel belongs to them. We must therefore draft a constitution that will be fully legitimate, a constitution that will represent the aspirations of our people.
  • On 24 January 1994, shortly after the National Assembly was convened, which was responsible for the drafting a new constitution, as quoted by Hassen Ebrahim, The Soul of a Nation: Constitution-making in South Africa, p. 239 (1998)

• This conference, with overwhelming agreement, unanimous agreement, has resolved that the expropriation of land without compensation should be among the mechanisms available to government to give effect to land reform and redistribution. It has also been resolved that in implementing this decision, we must insure that we do not undermine the economy, the agricultural production, and food security in our country.
  • On 20 December 2017 at the ANC's 54th national elective conference at Nasrec in Johannesburg, from a video and recording included in Top 5 quotes from Cyril Ramaphosa's closing address, TimesLive (21 December 2017)

• We now have a great opportunity to put land to good use, to take it out of those hands, lazy hands I might say, and put it into the working hands of our people.
  • At an ANC organized event in Johannesburg, as quoted by Amogelang Mbatha in Ramaphosa says state-owned companies are 'sewers of corruption', Bloomberg (1 June 2018)

• One of the other things that is going to help to give a boost to our economy is how we reform our state-owned enterprises. … The state-owned enterprises were sewers of corruption, a number of them. … There was rot, there was filth and there was deep corruption. We are rooting all that out right now.
  • At an ANC organized event in Johannesburg, as quoted by Amogelang Mbatha in Ramaphosa says state-owned companies are 'sewers of corruption', Bloomberg (1 June 2018)

• The last decade has seen many of the gains of the early years of democracy reversed through state capture and corruption, a failure of collective leadership, policy uncertainty and a growing distance between the people and their movement and their government. We have had to come to terms with the erosion of the values of the ANC and confront difficult questions about the quality and integrity of our leadership as the ANC.
  • At a memorial lecture for the late struggle icon Winnie Madikizela-Mandela in Johannesburg, as quoted by Siviwe Feketha in Ramaphosa slams Zuma's tenure, calls on ANC to tackle divisions, IOL (30 September 2018)

• The manifesto had a paragraph on a wish and an aspiration, acknowledging that the Reserve Bank is independent and that there is no intention whatsoever to tamper or tinker with the independence of the central bank. The wish that is expressed is, that as it goes ahead with monetary policy machinations, it will keep an eye on employment.
  • Answering a question by JSE chairperson Nyembezi-Heita in Rosebank, on the eve of the World Economic Forum in Davos, as quoted by Carien du Plessis in Ramaphosa and Magashule contradict each other on Reserve Bank nationalisation, Daily Maverick (17 January 2019)

• The independence, the standing and the role of the Reserve Bank is sacrosanct. It will remain independent, as clearly stated in our constitution.
  • Addressing South African business leaders on 16 January 2019, ahead of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Ramaphosa says Reserve Bank independence 'sacrosant', eNCA (17 January 2019)

• The US has been unable to imagine a better future that goes beyond four plus one G, where they have been unable to imagine what 5G has to offer. They are clearly jealous that a Chinese company called Huawei has outstripped them and because they have been outstripped, they must now punish that one company. We cannot afford to have our own economy being held back because there is this fight that the US is having.
  • As quoted by Peter Fabricius in Washington rejects Ramaphosa’s jibe that it is ‘jealous’ of Huawei’s 5G technology, Daily Maverick, 12 July 2019

• In Zimbabwe, I was booed by the whole stadium. I had to apologise to the people of Zimbabwe for the attacks. I do not want to call it xenophobic attacks. South Africans do not hate people of other nations. … We had to offer an apology on behalf of the people of South Africa. We are loved in the continent. We are a sought after country. … I had to apologise because those attacks were a national shame, …
  • On 15 September 2019, as guest of honour at the Grace Bible Church in Pimville, Soweto, following his return to South Africa from the funeral of Robert Mugabe, as quoted by Baldwin Ndaba in Ramaphosa says xenophobic attacks 'a national shame', Weekend Argus (15 September 2019)

• They were saying Shangaans must leave [Ekurhuleni]. The Vendas must leave. The next thing they will say the Batswanas must leave. The BaXhosa must leave. Who is going to remain? ... We must defeat the demon of tribalism.
  • As guest of honour at the Grace Bible Church in Pimville, Soweto, addressing the question of tribalism, as quoted by Baldwin Ndaba in Ramaphosa says xenophobic attacks 'a national shame', Weekend Argus (15 September 2019)

Quotes about Ramaphosa

• The ANC has been the ruling in South Africa since the dawn of democracy in 1994. By the time Ramaphosa rose to speak [in his inaugural State of the Nation address on 16 February 2018], South Africa had experienced nine years of destructive and devastating rule by Jacob Zuma. To give hope to the broken nation, Ramaphosa, in his New Dawn delivery, invoked the lyrics of a song by struggle and music icon Hugh Masekela called Thuma Mina, or Send Me, in a desperate but brilliant effort to galvanise all South Africans to action to reverse the negative effects of the excesses of the Zuma presidency. […] He had struck the right chord with the nation and Thuma Mina instantaneously forced its way into the social and political lexicon of the rainbow nation. […] Hugh Masekela was immortalised.
  • Sello Lediga in The Thuma Mina programme is meant for all of us, not just the ANC, Daily Maverick (22 May 2018)

• There was a strange aftertaste to many of the calls for grand social reform in 2020. As the coronavirus crisis overtook us, the left wing on both sides of the Atlantic, at least that part that had been fired up Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders, was going down to defeat. The promise of a radicalized and reenergized left, organized around the idea of the Green New Deal, seemed to dissipate amidst the pandemic. It fell to governments mainly of the center and the right to meet the crisis. They were a strange assortment. Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Donald Trump in the United States experimented with denial. For them climate skepticism and virus skepticism went hand in hand. In Mexico, the notionally left-wing government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador also pursued a maverick path, refusing to take drastic action. Nationalist strongmen like Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, Narendra Modi in India, Vladimir Putin in Russia, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey did not deny the virus, but relied on their patriotic appeal and bullying tactics to see them through. It was the managerial centrist types who were under most pressure. Figures like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer in the United States, or Sebastián Piñera in Chile, or Cyril Ramaphosa in South Africa, Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel, Ursula von der Leyen, and their ilk in Europe. They accepted the science. Denial was not an option. They were desperate to demonstrate that they were better than the 'populists.' To meet the crisis, very middle-of-the-road politicians ended up doing very radical things. Most of it was improvisation and compromise, but insofar as they managed to put a programmatic gloss on their responses—whether in the form of the EU's Next Generation program or Biden's Build Back Better program in 2020—it came from the repertoire of green modernization, sustainable development, and the Green New Deal.
  • Adam Tooze, Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World Economy (2021)