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Labour leader turned tycoon Ramaphosa eyes S.Africa political comeback

* Ramaphosa running for ANC No. 2 post, vote this week

* Millionaire status may hamper his “street cred” in ANC

* “Marikana massacre” drew attention to mine company role

* Praised as skilled and tough negotiator to end apartheid

By David Dolan

JOHANNESBURG, Dec 16 (Reuters) – Anti-apartheid hero turned

businessman Cyril Ramaphosa offers South Africa talent and

experience as deputy leader of the ruling ANC, but his bid for

office shows that a new, black elite is struggling to rally the

century-old party’s impoverished base.

Ramaphosa confirmed on Sunday he will challenge for the No.2

post at this week’s party conference. But it remains to be seen

whether a man who retreated from public life to make a fortune

in investments can fire up enthusiasm among the millions of poor

disillusioned by broken promises in 18 years of majority rule.

Once a firebrand campaigner for miners’ rights, he hit the

headlines this year as a mining company director who urged a

crackdown on strikers before police killed 34 of them.

While few who know him well today are willing to discuss

Ramaphosa on the record, people who worked with him in his

heyday as a labour organiser and politician speak glowingly of

his keen intellect and negotiating skills, which could serve his

party as it fends off charges of corruption and incompetence.

Insiders at the African National Congress gathering in

Bloemfontein said Ramaphosa had solid support and that President

Jacob Zuma believes the 60-year-old lawyer would bring new moral

authority if he dislodges current deputy, Kgalema Motlanthe, who

has mounted what most see as a doomed challenge to Zuma.

Though Ramaphosa sits on the ANC’s influential National

Executive Committee, the man once tipped as a successor to

Nelson Mandela has largely avoided public political engagements

for years and some who know him wonder if he has lost his touch.

“That’s his fundamental problem within the ANC, a lack of

street cred,” said one person who knows Ramaphosa well and has

done business with his investment company, Shanduka Group.

“Is he going to be the guy to stand up in front of the man

on the street and say, ‘We’ll sort it out’? I’m not so sure.”

Since a falling out with then president Thabo Mbeki in 2001,

Ramaphosa, who declined Reuters requests for an interview, has

kept his political views largely to himself. “Nobody knows what

Cyril really believes,” said a former business associate.

BUSINESS EMPIRE

Those who recall the charismatic orator who built the

National Union of Mineworkers into a major political force might

not recognise the cautious business leader his associates now

describe: “He is surprisingly quiet and non-confrontational on

boards,” said the person who has done business with Shanduka.

Ramaphosa benefited from the post-apartheid policy of Black

Economic Empowerment (BEE) and is now one of Africa’s richest

men, with a fortune estimated at $675 million by Forbes

magazine. He started Shanduka in 2001 to take advantage of BEE

rules that obliged companies to add black shareholders to meet

mandatory targets and win government contracts.

But while many South Africans complain the new black

capitalist elite has betrayed the anti-apartheid struggle, some

point to the continuing expansion of Ramaphosa’s business empire

as evidence of real entrepreneurial savvy that can help the

nation: “That’s a billion dollar company that they built from

nothing,” said the person who has done business with Shanduka.

It bought stakes, often with borrowed money, in some of the

country’s biggest firms, including Standard Bank, Lonmin, and

telecom MTN Group. In what some saw as an even more dynamic

move, it took 70 percent in McDonald’s South Africa, while

Ramaphosa himself acquired the rest. Last year, China’s

sovereign wealth fund, CIC, took a 25 percent stake in Shanduka.

MINE KILLINGS

It was his directorship at Lonmin, whose platinum mine was

the site of August’s “Marikana massacre” of strikers by police,

that brought new scrutiny of Ramaphosa’s wide-ranging business

interests: emails emerged showing he urged ministers to crack

down – on the very day before the shootings.

For a younger generation of miners – unfamiliar with his

heroic leadership of a 1987 strike that consecrated him as an

anti-apartheid icon – Ramaphosa is a sell-out to the bosses.

“Workers are not really passionate and enthusiastic about

Cyril’s nomination,” said a trade union leader, who spoke on

condition of anonymity. “He has business tentacles all over the

place and has not really pursued working class interests.

“He has actually exploited us.”

In a rare live media appearance, a radio caller told

Ramaphosa shortly after the Marikana killings: “Cyril, you have

failed South Africa.” He replied quietly: “Marikana should not

have happened. We are all to blame.”

He also had to apologise publicly after local media seized

on his bid worth $2 million at a livestock auction for a buffalo

cow and calf – at a time when Lonmin was refusing miners’

demands for a wage rise to $1,500 a month.

Yet others who have known him well, not least the man who

faced him across the table during negotiations to end apartheid,

believe Ramaphosa has much to offer: “To say that he’s lost

touch with the poor, I think it’s a complete underestimation of

what he’s really doing,” said Rolf Meyer, the lead negotiator

for the white National Party in the talks that ended in 1994.

Meyer praised charitable work by the Shanduka Foundation and

also argued Ramaphosa’s reputation had not been badly damaged:

“It was just a few people who spoke out,” he said. “And that was

projected by the media as if that is a grand stand that’s been

taken against Cyril. I don’t think that was the case.”

The former chief executive of gold mining company AngloGold

Ashanti Bobby Godsell, has called Ramaphosa “the most skilled

negotiator I have ever met”.

And Puseletso Salae, one of the first organisers at

Ramaphosa’s NUM in the early 1980s, remembers a young,

whip-smart lawyer who wore a leather jacket, chain-smoked and

had little patience for mistakes. Attentive to detail, Ramaphosa

would often hand back documents to his staff with scores of

corrections. “He was actually building you,” Salae said.

Despite the mark of the Marikana bloodshed, many believe

Ramaphosa is destined to play a role in South Africa’s future:

“In his worst year,” said the former business associate, “He

might end up being deputy president.”