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ANC's Ramaphosa

quits parliament

CAPE TOWN: Cyril Ramaphosa, whose tenure as chairman of South Africa's Constitutional Assembly ends with the expected adoption on May 8 of the country's new basic law, announced on Saturday that he was resigning from parliament.

Ramaphosa, the chief negotiator for the African National Congress (ANC) during the long multiparty negotiating process that resulted in the historic all-race elections of April 1994, said he would leave parliament to take up a job with the private sector.

Ramaphosa told a press conference, accompanied by President Nelson Mandela, the ANC leader, that he would stay on as secretary general of ANC and a member of its national executive.-AFP