Africa News

ANC conference: South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa defies scandal to win party vote

South Africa’s scandal-hit President Cyril Ramaphosa has been re-elected as the governing ANC’s leader to wild cheers from his supporters.

He defeated his rival Zweli Mkhize by 2,476 votes to 1,897.

Mr Ramaphosa won despite being dogged by allegations of money laundering, and a last-minute surge in support for Mr Mkhize, who has also been accused of corruption. Both deny the allegations.

His victory puts him in pole position to lead the ANC in the 2024 election.

But he is still at risk as he is being investigated by police, the tax office and central bank over allegations that he stashed at least $580,000 (£475,000) in a sofa at his private farm, and then covered up its theft.

A panel of legal experts, appointed by the speaker of parliament, said that he had a case to answer as he may have both violated the constitution and broken an anti-corruption law.

His supporters burst into song and dance after he was declared the winner, in a result that saw him win by a bigger margin than when he first ran for the leadership of the governing party - the African National Congress - in 2017.

Mr Ramaphosa’s re-election bid was bolstered by the fact the ANC used its parliamentary majority to vote down the findings of the panel.

The president has denied any wrongdoing, and has launched legal action to annul the panel’s report.

He said the $580,000 came from the sale of buffaloes, but the panel said there was “substantial doubt” over whether a transaction took place.

Mr Mkhize was the health minister in Mr Ramaphosa’s government until he was forced to resign last year over allegations of misspending funds set aside to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic.

He too has denied any wrongdoing, and his supporters saw the allegations as an attempt to discredit him.

Mr Ramaphosa was the odds-on favourite to win, but some of Mr Mkhize’s supporters looked stunned after the result was announced.

They were confident of victory after offering key posts to other powerful leaders in deals struck just ahead of delegates casting their ballots at the conference.

Both sides denied accusations of votebuying.

The ANC has been in power since whiteminority rule ended in 1994, and is hoping to secure a sixth term in the 2024 parliamentary election. But opinion polls suggest that its vote has shrunk considerably because of widespread corruption in government, high unemployment and poor public services - including constant power cuts.

The ANC elected a new deputy leader, Paul Mashatile, who defeated Mr Ramaphosa’s preferred candidate for the second-most powerful post in the party.

Mr Mashatile is now the front-runner to become South Africa’s deputy president, and president in the event Mr Ramaphosa is forced out of power.

The president’s allies won other powerful posts in the party, including that of secretarygeneral and national chairperson.

Defeated candidates embraced the winners in a show of unity after a bruising conference.

Supporters of ex-President Jacob Zuma had heckled Mr Ramaphosa during his opening speech at the conference last week.

But no leader from KwaZulu-Natal, the political heartland of Mr Zuma, was elected to any of the ANC’s top seven posts, in the latest sign of his and the region’s declining influence in the party.

The win ends a bruising political week for President Cyril Ramaphosa

Rwanda asylum seekers: ‘Fighting to survive’

“I’m fighting just to survive,” a nervous looking man tells me in a slightly trembling voice.

We’re standing on a patch of wasteland in Rwanda’s capital Kigali. It’s surrounded by trees to hide us from prying eyes.

Mohammed came to this country seeking asylum. He says he fled to Rwanda from Ethiopia, where he had been taking refuge until agents from his home country attempted to kidnap him.

Mohammed says life in Kigali has been difficult, but he is so scared of reprisals for speaking to a journalist that he’s asked me not to disclose his real name or the name of his home country, except that it is in Africa.

For days we’ve been trying to get an asylum seeker living in Rwanda to speak to us on the record. Time and again people agree, and then mysteriously become unavailable, often after being visited by a “community leader”.

“I’ve asked for asylum,” Mohammed tells me.

“The authorities don’t say no, but everything is ‘tomorrow’, or ‘come back next month’. It’s been almost one year that they haven’t given it to me.”

I had been speaking to Mohammed as the High Court in London was considering the legality of the UK government’s controversial plan to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda.

Earlier on Monday, the judges ruled that the UK government’s policy is lawful and any relocations there would be “consistent with the (UN) Refugee Convention”, although the cases of eight individual asylum seekers had not been properly considered.

The UK government believes the prospect of being sent to Rwanda to have asylum cases processed will act as a deterrent to people crossing the English Channel on small boats.

But opposition critics say the policy is cruel, unworkable and expensive.

Previously, campaign group Human Rights Watch (HRW) had expressed concern about conditions in Rwanda saying there was “repression of free speech, arbitrary detention, ill-treatment, and torture”.

In its assessment published earlier this year, the UK government had said that “notwithstanding some restrictions on freedom of speech and/or freedom of association” it was unlikely that someone being relocated from the UK would face illtreatment.

The United Nations’ refugee agency had told the court that Rwanda lacked the “minimum components for an accessible, reliable, fair and efficient asylum system”.

It was concerned that people could be sent back to countries where they face torture.

And in a report in June the UN agency said that “the efficiency and timeliness of the asylum procedure is of concern, with decisions taking up to one to two years to be issued in some cases”.

Mohammed says he feels like his life is in limbo. He is unable to work legally because he doesn’t have proper papers.

“Friends and relatives help,” he tells me, adding that odd jobs give him a little income.

But with a wife and children to support, the uncertainty is taking its toll.

He says he’d like to leave Rwanda, and go “anywhere there is peace, like Canada or Australia”.

Among the concerns raised by campaigners opposed to the UK plan is the treatment of LGBT people in Rwanda.

Unlike in some neighbouring countries, homosexual acts are not illegal in Rwanda. But in an open letter to the UK Home Office, HRW said that “in practice, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people face stigma in Rwanda”.

In 2021, it documented how the authorities “arbitrarily detained, harassed, insulted and beat” nine transgender or gay people at Kigali’s Gikondo Transit Centre, an unofficial detention facility, HRW said.

“Those interviewed said they had been targeted due to their sexual orientation or gender identity and treated worse than other detainees. Police officers or guards accused them of being homeless, thieves, or delinquents and held them in a room reserved for “delinquent” men, the campaign

The BBC is not disclosing the identity of Mohammed, an asylum seeker in Rwanda

group said.

One person who understands the stigma associated with homosexuality in Rwanda is Patrick Uwayezu.

He’s a gay member of the Evangelical Church of God in Africa in Rwanda, the only one in Kigali which welcomes LGBT members.

A slight man, with a powerful singing voice, he leads the choir on the Sunday that we visit the church.

Afterwards he tells me that LGBT people often find it difficult to access services such as healthcare because of attitudes towards them. It can even affect people’s chances of employment.

“If you hide your identity they can give you a job. But if [employers find out] your identity they’ll tell you: ‘Go, go, we can’t work with you.’”

“I think many people don’t understand us in this country,” he says.

During our six-day visit we repeatedly asked for an interview with the government. Although a spokesperson agreed to do it, the promised interview never materialised.

We did however get a statement in which a spokesperson said: “Discrimination in all its forms is outlawed by our constitution and Rwanda is welcoming to everyone.”

It added that the UN’s position was “clearly contradictory” as it criticised Rwanda while still sending asylum seekers to the country, including more than 100 from Libya earlier this year.

But responding to the London High Court ruling that the UK government’s plan was legal, the Rwandan government welcomed the decision and said it stood “ready to offer asylum seekers and migrants safety and the opportunity to build a new life in Rwanda”.

There are also refugee success stories in Rwanda. Teklay Teame arrived here from Eritrea almost 25 years ago, in 1998.

He now runs a chain of wholesale shops and supermarkets.

His staff are busy unloading a truck with big boxes and carrying them into one of his many shops when I meet him.

Source: BBC