South African residents excited about Ramaphosa's win

Many residents in South Africa have expressed their excitement about Ramaphosa’s victory, because the new president promised to promote the Reconstruction and Development Program (RDP),which, among many policy initiatives, advocates for meeting the basic needs of the impoverished.

“We are gonna get jobs, we’re gonna get the house RDP, yeah, I think life is gonna to be better in that way,” said a South African resident.

Another local resident gave high praise to the president elect.

“Cyril Ramaphosa is the winner, most of the provinces they voted for him. I think he is the best candidate to be honest with you.”

South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), elected Cyril Ramaphosa to be their next president at the 54th National Conference of the ANC on Monday.

Ramaphosa, who is the party and country’s deputy president, had a tight contest against the former African Union Commission’s chairwoman, Nkosazan Dlamini-Zuma, with only about 200 votes separating the two candidates.

“Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma received 2,261 votes and Comrade Cyril Ramaphosa received 2,440 votes,” said Bontle Mpakanyane, director of the EleXions Agency, who proctored the election and declared Ramaphosa as ANC’s next president.

Ramaphosa succeeds South Africa’s current President Jacob Zuma, who will still remain in his position as president, if not recalled by his party, until the 2019 election.

Khaya Sithole, a South African political analyst, said that South Africans now care more about their future economic development under the new ANC president.

“Whoever wins an ANC election, becomes an ANC president. The ANC is not the government, it is a political party. So the question here is do we feel that the government as it stands right now is suddenly going to discover new momentum of facilitating job creation and really boosting the economy. I’m not particularly sure because we are stuck with the same government that we had yesterday for at least the next 18 months. He might on the ground within the ANC party, then start putting a platform in place and a new manifesto, that then says for the next election, this is how we are going to do things differently. But as far as South Africa is concerned yesterday will be the same as tomorrow,” he added.

South Africa will hold its presidential and parliamentary elections in 2019.