According to multiple sources over the net, after Mandela stepped down as President of the country in 1999, he wanted Ramaphosa to be his predecessor but sadly, it wasn’t up to him alone.
Many NEC members disagreed with making Ramaphosa the President and instead, chose Thabo Mbeki as Mandela’s predecessor. Most of the reasons why Ramaphosa was rejected were tribal ones and the fact that he never went to exile to fight for the liberation struggle.
In 2001, 2 years after Mbeki was elected as President of the country, news reports started to make headlines on newspapers, radio and TV, due to rumours that Cyril Ramaphosa, Tokyo Sexwale and Mathews Phosa were planning on overthrowing then President, Thabo Mbeki.
As you’d expect, during that time, the news were on everyone’s lips with many airing their opinions in the whole matter. Some said the rumours were true because Cyril was so hurt after he lost out to Mbeki while others said those rumours were there to create a division in the party.
All 3 of them denied the accusations, it came to a point where even Mandela came in support of all of them during the saga.
After investigations were conducted, all 3 of them were found with no wrongdoing and exonerated of all charges. Although they might be clear now, the question still remains, did they ever try in overthrowing Thabo Mbeki??
