Mr Cyril Ramaphosa has been sworn-in as the President of South Africa at a colourful ceremony, vowing a new era amid expectations that he will revive the economy and fight corruption.

He took the oath of office at Loftus Versfeld stadium in Pretoria, as foreign heads of State from more than forty countries were among thirty-six thousand people that witnessed the event.

The sixty-six-year-old leader was unanimously elected by parliament to a five-year term after his African National Congress won legislative elections on May eight, taking two hundred and thirty of the four hundred seats.

The African National Congress garnered fifty-seven point five percent of the vote, its weakest result since apartheid was overturned twenty-five years ago.

Mr Ramaphosa, is a trade unionist who played a prominent role in the struggle to end white-minority rule before becoming a successful businessman.

He faces a herculean task to tackle the country’s many problems ranging from a sickly economy in which more than a quarter of the workforce is jobless to entrenching crime and corruption as well as land ownership which has remained overwhelmingly in the hands of whites .