A revised and extended edition of Cyril Ramaphosa: The Road to Presidential Power by Anthony Butler is out soon from Jacana Media.

President Cyril Ramaphosa is South Africa’s fifth post-apartheid president. He first came to prominence in the 1980s as the founder of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). When Nelson Mandela was released from prison in February 1990, Ramaphosa was at the head of the reception committee that greeted him. Chosen as Secretary-General of the African National Congress in 1991, Ramaphosa led the ANC’s team to negotiate the country’s post-apartheid constitution.

Thwarted in his ambition to succeed Mandela, he exchanged political leadership for commerce, ultimately becoming one of the country’s wealthiest businessmen, a breeder of exotic cattle and a philanthropist.

This fully revised and extended edition charts Ramaphosa’s early life and education, and his career in trade unionism, politics and constitution-building. Extensive new chapters explore his contribution to the National Planning Commission, the effects of the Marikana massacre on his political prospects and the real story behind his rise to the deputy presidency of the country in 2014.  They set out the constraints Ramaphosa faced as Jacob Zuma’s deputy, and explain how he ultimately triumphed in the election of the ANC’s new president in 2017.

The book concludes with an analysis of the challenges Ramaphosa faces as the country’s fifth post-apartheid president.

This commanding biography tells the full story of this enigmatic leader’s life and political career for the first time. It is based on numerous personal conversations with Ramaphosa over the past
decade, and on rich interviews with many of the subject’s friends and contemporaries.

About the author 

Anthony Butler was educated at St Anne’s College, Oxford, and King’s College, Cambridge. He has been a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge; Director of the Politics and Administration
programme at Birkbeck College, University of London and Chair in Political Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand. He is currently Professor of Political Studies at the University of Cape Town. He writes a regular column for Business Day.

Price subject to change.

Categories Non-fiction South Africa South African Current Affairs

Tags Anthony Butler Cyril Ramaphosa Jacana Media New books New releases