# South Africa: ANC Recalls President Jacob Zuma, elects Cyril Ramaphosa **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [February 13, 2018, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-africa-anc-recalls-president-jacob-zuma-elects-cyril-ramaphosa/808758 "2018-02-13T12:35:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 22
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2018, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-africa-anc-recalls-president-jacob-zuma-elects-cyril-ramaphosa/808758/22 "2018-02-14T14:49:48Z")
It might be time for a “what’s his resulting legacy” thread. It was 8 years ago that our South African dopers had a opinion of the guy which ranged from a cautious-optimistic approach: > [@South Africa, where to now?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-africa-where-to-now/528704/25): > > Really, as President, Zuma hasn’t yet done anything that I would particularly object to. I have to rate him higher than Mbeki if just for the change in HIV/AIDS policy. I agree that he seems more grounded; perhaps he’s a little bit _too_ populist for my taste, but in balance I think it’s better than Mbeki’s “ivory tower” attitude. Zuma does seem to give at least the appearance of caring about what’s happing to the “man in the street” - although of course it could all be PR spin. …to a grounded/resigned realism: > [@South Africa, where to now?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-africa-where-to-now/528704/26): > > The Zuma presidency could be a lot worse (Malema could actually be a Minister or something :(), and while I used to think Mbeki was a good president aside from the AIDS thing, it seems I was wrong about him and he was actually just fronting, as more stuff about the underhandedness has come out. One thing I’ll say about Zuma, what you see is pretty much what you get, even if it isn’t pretty, and he definitely thinks with his penis first,which isn’t reassuring (but - Kennedy, Clinton, they were OK presidents, weren’t they?) > > I have it good authority that you can’t give the man any policy documents to read, he prefers verbal briefings as he finds reading tough going, which is a little too Dubya-like for my liking, but any quirks like that are balanced out by the reversal on AIDS policy. Those were the -mostly character based- predictions, any additional thoughts looking back at the last 8 years? --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-africa-anc-recalls-president-jacob-zuma-elects-cyril-ramaphosa/808758)._