South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC) is preparing to choose a new party leader to succeed President Jacob Zuma.<\/p>\n
The main candidates are the current deputy president, Cyril Ramaphosa, and former cabinet minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, President Zuma’s ex-wife.<\/p>\n
Whoever wins is likely to succeed Mr Zuma as South African president.<\/p>\n
But their bitter leadership battle has raised fears that the ANC could split before national elections in 2019.<\/p>\n
President Zuma can remain head of state until those elections. He has been in office since 2009 and South Africa limits the presidency to two five-year terms.<\/p>\n
As delegates gathered for the four-day conference in Johannesburg, Mr Zuma, who faces multiple corruption allegations, has urged the party to unite behind the eventual winner.<\/p>\n
The leadership contest is expected to be a close one, with legal challenges a possibility.<\/p>\n
President Zuma is backing his 68-year-old former wife, Ms Dlamini-Zuma, a veteran politician in her own right who has been critical of the enduring power of white-owned businesses.<\/p>\n
Mr Ramaphosa, 65, has spoken out strongly against state corruption and has the backing of the business community.<\/p>\n
Recent news that he had a modest lead in the polls was quickly reflected by a rise in the financial markets.<\/p>\n
President Zuma, 75, has been the focus of much controversy and he has survived several votes of no confidence in parliament.<\/p>\n
He faces numerous corruption allegations but denies any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
More than 5,000 delegates are taking part in the four-day ANC elective conference at the Expo Centre in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n
The first major engagement for the new leader will be the ANC anniversary celebrations on 8 January.<\/p>\n
The ANC has governed South Africa since the first democratic election more than 20 years ago.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC) is preparing to choose a new party leader to succeed President Jacob Zuma. The main candidates are the current deputy president, Cyril Ramaphosa, and former cabinet minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, President Zuma’s ex-wife. Whoever wins is likely to succeed Mr Zuma as South African president. But their bitter leadership […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[5284,3908,481],"class_list":["post-383784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international","tag-anc","tag-jacob-zuma","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=383784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383784\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=383784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=383784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=383784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}