Zuma picks cabinet of all talents

Zuma picks cabinet of all talents

HOPE: President Zuma named his new cabinet on Sunday

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By Jonathan Clayton
Posted to the web: 10/05/2009 23:56:34
JACOB Zuma moved swiftly to assure investors that South Africa would not lurch leftwards under his rule by appointing the widely respected former Finance Minister, Trevor Manuel, to head a powerful new planning unit within the presidency.

Zuma, who was inaugurated as the country’s third black president on Saturday, announced an inclusive Cabinet designed to appeal to all sectors of society.

He rewarded loyalists but also promoted whites, Asians and technocrats and sidelined those with any whiff of incompetence or corruption around them.

In an overture towards white Afrikaner farmers, he named an Afrikaner, Pieter Mulder, head of the right-wing Freedom Front Plus opposition party, as Deputy Agriculture Minister. Zuma wants to reassure the white community that there will be no Zimbabwe-style land grabs.

Manuel’s replacement at the Finance Ministry is Pravin Gordhan, who was previously head of the South African Revenue Service, considered one of the most efficient government bodies.

Despite much speculation, there was no job for Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, former wife of Nelson Mandela and a close Zuma ally. She is a controversial figure but remains a darling of the township masses and was fifth on the African National Congress’s list of candidates for parliament. She is now 73 and party insiders said that she was too old for a post in government but will receive due respect as “Mother of the Nation”.

Another casualty was “Dr Garlic”, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, Health Minister under Zuma’s predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, who advocated a diet of onions and garlic to help to fight HIV/Aids. She had already been sidelined to a job in the presidency and has now lost it altogether.

“I think the markets are going to react very positively to Trevor Manuel’s shift from finance to a new Cabinet-level planning department,” Zuma told reporters at a briefing at the Union Buildings, his new office, on Sunday. “Comrade Trevor Manuel is being given a new structure, a very powerful structure, that is going to work out a national plan of government.”

One post that raised eyebrows was that of Foreign Affairs, now renamed International Relations. It went to an ANC women’s league and provincial activist, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, best known for once being married to an ambassador accused of sexual misconduct at the country’s embassy in Indonesia.

The Cabinet appointments were examined closely for hints that Zuma’s economic policy would swing leftwards because of support he had received from the South African Communist Party and the labour movement in an epic battle with Mbeki for the ANC leadership. In the end, leftwingers were given junior jobs and non-economic portfolios. - Times
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