Cyril Ramaphosa

Biography

Cyril Ramaphosa was born in Soweto in 1952. He enrolled to study law at the University of the North (Turfloop) in 1972, became active in student politics through the South African Students' Organisation and the Black People's Convention, and was detained under security laws in 1974 and again in 1976. He finished a law degree by correspondence with the University of South Africa in 1981.

In 1982 he became the first secretary-general of the National Union of Mineworkers, which grew into the country's largest and most powerful union. After the ANC was unbanned in 1990 he chaired the National Reception Committee that organised Nelson Mandela's release, and in 1991 he was elected ANC secretary-general and became the party's chief negotiator in the talks that ended apartheid. After the 1994 election he chaired the Constitutional Assembly that drew up the new constitution.

Ramaphosa left politics in 1996 for business, founding the Shanduka Group and sitting on boards including MTN and Lonmin; his conduct as a Lonmin director during the 2012 Marikana strike drew lasting criticism. He returned as ANC deputy president in 2012, became deputy president of South Africa in 2014 and won the ANC presidency in December 2017. Parliament elected him president of South Africa in February 2018, after Jacob Zuma resigned.

He led the ANC to victory in the 2019 general election, chaired the African Union in 2020-21 and directed South Africa's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. After the ANC lost its parliamentary majority in 2024, the National Assembly re-elected him president in June of that year.