Johannesburg - The ANC “has always done the right thing” in deciding who should lead it, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa replied to an opposition question on whether the governing party was ready for a woman president.
“When it chooses who should lead the ANC, it has wide choice… It has 1.5 million members to chose from… We are schooled in the ANC to say that the membership will decide.
“This is how democratic this glorious organisation is. It has always done the right thing.
“Watch this space, it will do the right thing again,” he said during Wednesday’s question time in the National Council of Provinces (NCOP).
The matter of a woman president came under the spotlight at the recent ANC Women’s League conference. Talk of a woman president for the country started on the campaign trail of last year’s elections when President Jacob Zuma indicated that South Africa was ready for a woman head of state.
The ANC goes to its national conference in 2017 when its leaders will be elected. Given the ANC’s dominant election performances to date, historically the party’s president has become the country’s president.
On Wednesday, Ramaphosa answered the question from DA NCOP delegate Jacques Julius, although NCOP deputy chairman Raseriti Tau cautioned that the question might be inappropriate.
Ramaphosa, who has taken to speaking about himself in the third person, decided to answer a question over the use of a chartered plane owned by the politically connected Gupta family to travel to Japan recently.
“We have nothing to hide,” he said. “I did not know who that plane belonged to. The information of the ownership of the plane only came out much later.
“What we always seek to do is (to find) the most cost-effective way to take us to our destination,” he added.
The Star