A Conversation with Cyril Ramaphosa, President of South Africa

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Cyril Ramaphosa is the fifth President of a democratic South Africa.

He was born in Johannesburg in 1952. A lawyer by training, his involvement in anti-apartheid activism led to his first detention by the apartheid regime in 1974.

In 1982 he founded the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and was instrumental in the establishment of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU).

In 1991 he was elected Secretary General of the African National Congress (ANC). He was head of the ANC’s negotiation team during the country’s transition to democracy. As Chairperson of the Constitutional Assembly he played a formative role in the drafting of South Africa’s first democratic Constitution in 1996.

On completion of the Constitution, he moved into business. In 2001, he established Shanduka Group as a black-owned investment holding company, building up a diverse portfolio of listed and unlisted assets.

In 2004, he established the Shanduka Foundation, which is now called the Cyril Ramaphosa Foundation, and which focuses on education and small business development.

He returned to active politics in 2012, when he was elected ANC Deputy President. He was elected ANC President in 2017 and became President of South Africa in 2018.

In 2020 President Ramaphosa assumed the rotational chairship of the African Union, and coordinated the AU’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Following South Africa’s 2024 elections, Ramaphosa was re-elected President, forming a government of national unity comprised of 10 parties represented in the National Assembly.