Ramaphosa breaks his silence on Marikana

ANC Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa last night spoke for the first time about the Marikana massacre, President Jacob Zuma's Nkandla scandal and his own political ambitions.

In a wide-ranging interview with CNN's Christina Amanpour, Ramaphosa shed light on how he sees the ANC today - and on whether he would like to become South Africa's president after Zuma in 2019. The CNN interview comes just weeks after Ramaphosa was elected Zuma's deputy. He is seen as a leader with the ability to boost the ruling party's damaged image with the electorate, particularly in urban areas.

Ramaphosa told Amanpour that the ANC needed to regain the moral high ground.

On his controversial e-mails to the Lonmin platinum mine bosses ahead of the massacre by police of strikers on August 16, Ramaphosa said all he was trying to do was to prevent the deaths of innocent people. He said he would tell this to the Marikana Commission of Inquiry, which was appointed by Zuma to investigate the massacre, as well as the killings of 10 people, allegedly by strikers, in the days leading up to it.

Ramaphosa, a businessman with interests in a number of sectors, including mining, is a major shareholder in Lonmin. His detractors, both within the ANC and outside, accused him of having sided with the mine management against the strikers to protect his interests.

On Nkandla, Ramaphosa took a safe line, telling Amanpour that independent institutions were looking into the reported expenditure by the state of more than R200-million on Zuma's private homestead. He said once reports by the public protector and auditor general were complete, they would be evaluated and the correct decision would be made.

Playing down his presidential ambitions, he said his job was to serve as the party's deputy president and that Zuma would be the face of the ANC's elections campaign next year.