More consolidation than renewal

President Jacob Zuma has reshuffled his Cabinet in what has been presented as an exercise in getting rid of dead wood and shaping up to improve delivery. But closer analysis shows that his decisions were also strongly shaped by a political agenda aimed at further strengthening and consolidating his own position and dealing with internal political problems in the ruling party.

In vintage Zuma style he managed to keep all the various competing factions in the ruling Alliance happy with some clever moves without actually changing the balance of power. It is Zuma himself who comes out tops and in charge.

Zuma’s status was greatly boosted when the recent national general council of the African National Congress endorsed his leadership. Now he has moved to further strengthen and consolidate his position in the alliance, the ANC and the government. It appears Zuma is firmly back in the driving seat.

Zuma spent the past three weeks in one-on-one meetings with ministers to assess their performances. He also consulted with others in the alliance, such as the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) secretary-general Zwelinzima Vavi before making his decisions.

But in the end it was clear that his reshuffling of the Cabinet was strongly influenced by a political agenda informed by the internal factional struggles and other political problems in the ruling alliance, as he fired only three non-performers while retaining several others, albeit with some of them being moved to new portfolios.

The biggest executive ever

However, South Africans pay a price for President Zuma’s dealing with internal party political problems in this way. The already bloated executive has now been further inflated with the creation of four additional deputy-minister posts in the ministries of Labour, Presidency–Performance Monitoring, Energy and Higher Education, pushing up the executive annual remuneration bill – excluding perks like official cars – to about R1.04-billion a year. The executive now consists of the president, deputy president, 34 ministers and 32 deputy ministers – a total of 68, arguably the biggest governing executive ever in South Africa’s history.

Zuma, a master at charming different, even highly disparate, audiences and keeping competing factions and people happy, made sure everyone got a slice of the cake: from labour and the left, to the tenderpreneurs and so-called nationalists, to the rebellious ANC Youth League (ANCYL), the ANC Women’s League, his KwaZulu-Natal power base, the influential Gauteng cabal, and more. He also continued the removal of remnants of the rule of former President Thabo Mbeki started after last year’s general election.

The reshuffle also only marginally touched on ministries in the economic and security clusters, two areas Zuma would have been loath to tamper with. Changes in the economic cluster could send out the wrong signals and spook markets, while he has handpicked the members of the security cluster, all of whom are close confidantes going back a long way with Zuma.

Zuma’s caution worked – there was no reaction from the markets. The economic cluster was affected only by the appointment of two deputy ministers at Trade and Industry and at Economic Development, while the security cluster was affected only on the fringe by the appointment of a new Communications minister and deputy minister and a new Police deputy minister. For the rest Zuma’s security cluster with its strong Zulu ethnic make-up remains intact.

Non-performers

The three non-performers that were fired are Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda, Women, Children and People with Disabilities Minister Noluthando Mayende-Sibiya and Sports and Recreation Minister Makhenkesi Stofile. But even in Nyanda’s case other factors may have played a decisive role. It is likely that Vavi’s advice to Zuma was to get rid of Nyanda.

Under Nyanda the SABC had deteriorated to an all-time low. Nyanda made headlines when he acquired two official cars worth R2-million; stayed in expensive hotels at huge cost; fired his director-general Mamodupi Mohlala when she levelled corruption charges against him in a row recently; came under fire for controversial business dealings; and threatened to sue Cosatu’s Vavi for naming him in connection with allegations of corruption.

Nyanda is to be replaced by Roy Padayachie, a former deputy Communications minister who hails from a political background in the Natal Indian Congress and the United Democratic Front before joining the ANC. He worked as a chemist and microbiologist at South African and multinational companies.

Nyanda’s firing may also be part of an attempt by Zuma to demonstrate that he is responding to repeated demands from Cosatu and others to act against corruption. However, at the same time Cooperative Governance minister Sicelo Shiceka, whose name was also mentioned for allegedly doctoring his curriculum vitae, as well as other people linked to various controversial activities, such as Police Commissioner Bheki Cele – embroiled  in a controversial tender process for the renting of a new police building – remain firmly in their jobs.

And Zuma has just appointed Ngoako Ramathlodi as Deputy Minister of Correctional Services despite past allegations of him having been involved in some controversial affairs. At one stage corruption charges against him were dropped. Ramathlodi became a staunch Zuma supporter after being axed by Mbeki as Limpopo premier.

Another possible additional reason for the axing of Nyanda – a former close colleague of Zuma’s in the ANC underground military and security structures during the liberation struggle and Operation Vula in KwaZulu-Natal – is his apparent closeness to Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale, who is thought to still harbour presidential ambitions of his own after supporting Zuma in the previous leadership elections in the ANC. That is not good politics at a time when Zuma is seeking to strengthen his own position ahead of the next ANC leadership elections in 2012.

Nyanda’s name has also been linked to the so-called nationalists in the ANC who include businessmen and tenderpreneurs such as the ANC Youth League’s Julius Malema in their ranks. Nyanda is considered a key ally of Malema who has recently fallen foul of Zuma and may be headed for another dressing-down by the ANC leadership in the near future. This group has not always endeared itself to Zuma, and has been involved in a dirty war of exclusion against the alliance’s left wing, whose support Zuma needs if he is to remain in power.

The one minister who was willing to show some dissent in public from time to time, Barbara Hogan of public enterprises, was also shown the door and replaced by Malusi Gigaba. The fact that she apparently could not come to grips with management problems at some public enterprises, like the fact that Maria Ramos still has not been replaced at Transnet, might have contributed to her demise.

The left wing

The left, especially Cosatu and its leader, Vavi, have been particularly vocal critics of aspects of Zuma’s administration, at one point even threatening to withdraw Cosatu’s support for the ANC in next year’s local government elections. A key Cosatu demand has been for greater input in economic planning and policy-making and Cosatu was upset when Zuma announced government’s new economic growth path, saying it had never been consulted during its drafting.

In what may be  a gesture to appease Cosatu, Zuma has appointed the former trade unionist and Public Enterprises deputy minister, Enoch Godongwana, as Deputy Minister of Economic Development, where the minister is Ebrahim Patel, who is seen as Cosatu’s man in the Cabinet.

Labour also scored with the appointment of at least two other veteran trade unionists as deputy ministers;  Thulas Nxesi at Rural Development and Godfrey Oliphant as the newly created Deputy Minister of Mineral Resources. These appointments will also make up for the departure of Mayende-Sibiya, another key Cosatu deployee in government, but who was out of her depth as Women, Children and People with Disabilities Minister.

Last of Mbeki’s team

Those who remained in government from the Mbeki era and whom Zuma has now finally axed, include Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana, Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica, and Sports and Recreation Minister Makhenkesi Stofile. The appointment of Marius Fransman as Deputy Minister of International Relations and Cooperation also in a sense completes the purging of supporters of former Western Cape premier Ebrahim Rasool, who was linked to Mbeki. He replaces Sue van der Merwe, who was appointed to that position by Mbeki and was not moved to any other department by Zuma.

Meanwhile, while Nyanda, a close Malema/ANCYL ally may have fallen, the appointment of former ANCYL presidents Malusi Gigaba and Fikile Mbalula as Ministers of Public Enterprises and Sports respectively, has been warmly welcomed by the ANCYL. The league’s spokesman Floyd Shivambu said their appointment gives practical meaning to the principle of generational mix in the leadership of government as demanded by the ANCYL at the recent national general council.

The league congratulated Zuma, whereas until recently it had been just about calling for his head. With Zuma pacifying the league with these appointments, and with Malema possibly facing further disciplinary action from the ANC’s leadership, it seems a subtle divide-and-rule strategy may be at work here.

The full list of new Cabinet and deputy ministers is as follows: