South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) in the week, elected the Vice President of the country, Cyril Ramaphosa, as its new leader. Although this followed a seemingly rancorous, but properly planned congress, where about 4800 delegates voted to elect the new leader, ANC showed examples that cannot be glossed over in terms of organisation, decorum, respect for party supremacy and above all, the very essence of domesticating democracy to suit the challenges and realities of any given social unit.
As it is in many parts of the world when it comes to party politics, it was no surprise that in spite of the near perfection put into the exercise, the congress was tainted by allegations of vote-buying and rigging. But at the end of the day, 2,440 delegates voted for the 65-year-old businessman to defeat his closest rival, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, 68, who is an ex-wife of incumbent, Jacob Zuma, in a hotly contested election.
With his emergence as the President of the ANC, Ramaphosa is expected to take over as the leader of the country from Zuma. To emerge leader, however, Ramaphosa had campaigned on increasing investment in the country and growing the country’s economy. Perhaps, the reason he was the choice of urban, middle-class members of the ANC, a majority of who believed his election represents a break from Zuma’s corrupt era.
Arguably a crucial moment in the life of ANC since the end of apartheid and the election of former President Nelson Mandela, which ended many years of white racist rule, one thing that has set South Africa’s democracy apart is its recruitment process for leadership, which follows a standard that suits its dynamic disposition, culture and beliefs.
This is not some haphazard approach as the case in Nigeria, which is always in desperate search for leaders at the nick of time, without any clearly identified process. Although the takeaways are a legion, Nigeria can pick these few and domesticate them too.
