The election of Cyril Ramaphosa as the new president of the African National Congress (ANC) is “too little too late” for the party, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said in a statement on Monday.

“The ANC is dead and cannot self-correct, no matter who is at the helm,” DA leader Mmusi Maimane said in a statement shortly after the result was announced.

“This is because the party itself is held together only by the glue of patronage and corruption and Cyril Ramaphosa is just a new face to the same old ANC.”

Ramaphosa is the 14th president of the ANC.

After a gruelling election campaign to win the party leadership, 2 440 delegates voted for Ramaphosa to lead the country’s governing party for the next five years.

The losing candidate, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, received 2 261 votes.

Maimane said the future of South Africa lies outside of the ANC and that it was up to the voters to “bring about change by removing the ANC in 2019 and ushering a new beginning for our country”.

“Ramaphosa now leads a deeply divided organisation, which has evolved into a self-serving party that has forgotten the poor and the jobless.”

Maimane said Ramaphosa must ensure that an immediate plan of action is adopted, which seeks the following:

– the scrapping of any version of a “nuclear deal”;

– the appointment of a new, competent National Director of Public Prosecutions so that prosecutions against President Jacob Zuma and others can proceed swiftly;

– commitment to the national budget that is balanced and sustainable, and which carefully manages the public sector wage bill;

– an entire overhaul of the structure and management of state-owned entitles (SOEs), including a “clean up” of captured boards and executives, and selling off those SOEs which strangle the economy and the national fiscus; and

– ensuring a future Cabinet comprising fit-for-purpose individuals, rather than a “rewards scheme” for certain factions within the ANC.

[Source: Times live]