KING CHARLES TO HOST SA’S RAMAPHOSA IN FIRST STATE VISIT OF REIGN

Mon 03 October 2022:

Next month, King Charles III will host South African President Cyril Ramaphosa for three days of high-level negotiations in the United Kingdom. This will be the first official visit since the king succeeded his late mother Queen Elizabeth II last month.

Ramaphosa accepted Charles’ invitation for a state visit from November 22 to 24, Buckingham Palace declared on Monday.

First Lady Tshepo Motsepe will accompany the president of South Africa.

The Commonwealth, a political alliance of 56 nations, the majority of which were once British colonies, includes South Africa.

Ramaphosa’s predecessors Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma, the other presidents the country has had since its first multi-ethnic elections in April 1994, have also previously made state visits to the UK.

While still the prince of Wales and the duchess of Cornwall, Charles and Camilla, the queen consort, welcomed former South African President Jacob Zuma to the UK at the start of a state visit in 2010.

The new monarch has visited South Africa on several occasions since 1997. At Mandela’s funeral in 2013, he said the world would be a “poorer place” without the man who led South Africa’s transition from apartheid to multi-ethnic democracy, adding that Mandela was owed “an enormous debt of gratitude” for his achievements.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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