President Ramaphosa reshuffles his cabinet under duress

SOUTH AFRICA - In Brief 07 Mar 2023 by Iraj Abedian

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Last night after much anticipation and months of delays, President Ramaphosa finally announced some fairly predictable changes to his Cabinet. His old ally and now X-Deputy President David Mabuza finally resigned as a Member of the Parliament after weeks of hoping that Ramaphosa would reshuffle back in January. When in Mid-December 2022 at the ANC’s Elective Congress , Mr Paul Mashatile was elected unopposed as the Deputy President of ANC, the writing was on the wall that he would have to be brought into the Cabinet as the Deputy President. David Mabuza then expressed his intention to resign from the parliament and from his post as the deputy president. Since then Ramaphosa has been delaying the inevitable- somewhat inexplicably too. Furthermore, a number of other vacancies were also left unfilled for months. In the run-up to yesterday’s announcement, Ramaphosa was under growing pressure to deal with the issues of public interest because not only had the Cabinet vacancies ramifications for the functioning of the state, but also speculations were growing about the sagging support for the president due to his ongoing indecision in matters of public interest. Last week he was seen at a cattle auction dinner instead of dealing with the pressing issues of his Cabinet vacancies and related issues. The reshuffle itself was an occasion for Ramaphosa to purge his Cabinet of some of his ANC opponents and critics such as Minister Sisulu of Tourism Department, and replace them with his allies the like of former KwaZulu-Natal premier Sihle Zikalala. Otherwise, he moved around his ministers giving the excuse that these are temporary “reshuffles” given that next year after the Nation...