LONDON \u2014 South Africa\u2019s new president, Cyril Ramaphosa, who had traveled to London this week to assure global investors of his determination to tackle corruption in his country and restore faith in its public institutions, cut short his trip on Thursday to deal with unrest at home \u2014 a vivid indication of the challenges he faces.<\/p>\n
The protests in the North West Province, in which demonstrators seeking better jobs and housing, and improved roads and hospitals, clashed with the police, were the biggest in the two months since Mr. Ramaphosa took office.<\/p>\n
His predecessor, Jacob Zuma, was tarnished by scandal and deeply unpopular during much of his nearly nine-year tenure, and he was eventually forced out in a struggle within the leadership of the African National Congress, the party that has governed South Africa since the end of apartheid in 1994.<\/p>\n
In a statement announcing his return from London to Pretoria, one of South Africa\u2019s capitals, Mr. Ramaphosa\u2019s office said he had \u201ccalled for calm and adherence to the rule of law\u201d in the province, and urged demonstrators \u201cto express their grievances through peaceful means and engagement rather than violence and anarchy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The president also urged law enforcement agencies \u201cto exercise maximum restraint in execution of their duties to return calm and normality to the province,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
[Read More: How Mandela\u2019s Political Heirs Grow Rich Off Corruption.]<\/p>\n
Mr. Ramaphosa had been in London to attend a meeting of leaders of the Commonwealth nations, which South Africa rejoined in 1994 when a democratic government was elected after the fall of white-minority rule.<\/p>\n
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\nThe trip, which included meetings with Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain, was something of a road show for the new president to present himself to the financial markets. Mr. Ramaphosa announced plans to raise $100 billion in foreign investment over the next five years.<\/p>\n
In a speech at the summit meeting, Mr. Ramaphosa said his country had entered \u201ca new era of confidence and hope,\u201d and he named four envoys, including two well-respected former Finance Ministry officials, to campaign for investments.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe pitch is going to be, \u2018We\u2019re open for business, we\u2019re embarking on reforms,\u2019\u201d he told Bloomberg TV in an interview this week.
\nWhile in London, Mr. Ramaphosa addressed investors\u2019 anxiety about possible land reform in South Africa while acknowledging some constituents\u2019 demand for radical change. He tried to allay fears of a violent land grab as had happened in Zimbabwe.<\/p>\n
When apartheid fell in the 1990s, the new A.N.C. government alleviated fears of white South Africans by largely upholding existing economic arrangements. But the country\u2019s high level of inequality \u2014 and resentment at members of a black elite who have benefited from graft \u2014 has prompted major demonstrations against economic injustice in recent years.<\/p>\n
When the A.N.C. took power, it wanted to address the issue of land ownership in South Africa, but \u201cit has not quite worked as we had intended it to work,\u201d Mr. Ramaphosa said in the television interview.<\/p>\n
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Another gargantuan task Mr. Ramaphosa faces is to deliver on his promise of a \u201cnew dawn\u201d following public outrage over corruption and of an Indian business family\u2019s influence on the previous administration. Endemic corruption has engulfed South Africa and eroded virtually every institution in the country, including state enterprises.<\/p>\n
While the police and prosecutors are investigating multiple cases of corruption and plan to recover more than $4 billion lost from state coffers, they have done little to prosecute political leaders who enabled malfeasance across many sectors of the economy.<\/p>\n
The president\u2019s recent appointments to his cabinet have also cast doubt on his promises of reform. After he became party leader by a razor-thin margin, Mr. Ramaphosa appointed several officials who had been accused of corruption in the past.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, South Africa\u2019s public ombudsman announced an investigation into two high-ranking members of the A.N.C. after $21 million of public funds, meant to help struggling black farmers, went to politically connected companies and individuals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LONDON \u2014 South Africa\u2019s new president, Cyril Ramaphosa, who had traveled to London this week to assure global investors of his determination to tackle corruption in his country and restore faith in its public institutions, cut short his trip on Thursday to deal with unrest at home \u2014 a vivid indication of the challenges he faces. The protests in the… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1650"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1651,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1650\/revisions\/1651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}