Living through the shattered veneer of unilateral prerogatives …

It all started slowly enough with the dramatic descent into disgrace of ANC Women’s League (ANCWL) president Sisisi Tolashe, who was also serving as Minister of Social Development.

Tolashe’s rise to the ANCWL presidency coincided with the exit of her predecessor Bathabile Dlamini. Dlamini had – as tends to happen in political circles – a loyal foot soldier in Lumka Oliphant, who had served in the ministry during Dlamini’s tenure.

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For reasons known only to political operators and specifically politicians with gripes and grudges, Tolashe did not exactly treasure Oliphant as a member of the department. The tensions resulted in Oliphant being dismissed from the ministry and her tacit declaration of war against Tolashe.

For Tolashe’s sins, her approach to governance, management and alleged nepotism were scandalous enough for various allegations to emerge, and Oliphant’s assertions about her to essentially be validated.

Listen: GNU faces new test over cabinet power struggle

So frequent and embarrassing were the scandals that President Cyril Ramaphosa was forced to pull the plug and remove Tolashe from cabinet.

Given the fact that the Constitution gives him the unilateral prerogative to do so in Section 91(2), this should be a straightforward enough process: the president decides, and the decision is final.

Exactly a year ago, the president had exercised that same prerogative to remove Democratic Alliance (DA) Deputy Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition Andrew Whitfield, who had committed the cardinal sin of leaving the country without permission.

President’s ‘sole prerogative’

In reminding us that the president owed us no explanation, Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni stated that: “The decision to appoint or remove or to reshuffle ministers and deputy ministers, that’s the sole prerogative of the president. He exercises that without consulting anyone, but that’s his sole decision.”

The implication of this assertion is that by not consulting anyone, as the minister claimed, the president independently applies his mind before deciding who enters or leaves cabinet.

This means the president is singularly responsible and accountable for the bad decisions and the good choices he makes.

Except, of course, this is all really a load of hyperbolic nonsense.

A few days before the latest cabinet reshuffle, the DA’s new leader Geordin Hill-Lewis approached the president with a proposal to change some of the members of the cabinet who are from the DA.

This was premised on the fact that, within the DA itself, the question of who gets deployed to serve in the government of national unity (GNU) is materially influenced by the leader of the day.

John Steenhuisen had joined the government with a coterie of DA members of parliament (MPs) who were presumably deemed appropriate for the type of portfolios allocated to the DA, and were on the right side of the political spectrum (or divide, if any) within the DA itself.

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When Hill-Lewis ran and won in the race that Steenhuisen opted out of, the internal political power balance naturally shifted and Hill-Lewis – like any leader – would have had his own list of those he either believed would be better servants in government, or were close enough to his corner to warrant consideration as members of cabinet.

The tension point emerged when Hill-Lewis’s recommendations for a shuffle included removing Steenhuisen from a ministerial position to the less vaunted position of deputy minister.

‘Granita Pact’

The fallout from the demotion stems from the proverbial ‘Granita Pact’ (gentlemen’s agreement) that Steenhuisen believed existed between him and Hill-Lewis, which was supposed to guarantee Steenhuisen a ministerial job provided he did not run against Hill-Lewis.

Read: Steenhuisen demoted as Ramaphosa reshuffles cabinet

The request for the president to demote him then became a betrayal of this pact that has ignited a civil war within the DA that has entangled the grand duke of the DA – Tony Leon – and the lobbying firm that he runs, which apparently seeks to champion the interests of its clients through directly engaging DA ministers in government.

The escalating scandal would have been perfect fodder for the ANC ahead of the electoral campaign season if Ramaphosa hadn’t decided – at the time of announcing the shuffle – that sabotaging the ANC would be a good idea.

Dina Pule’s political return

As it turns out, 13 years ago this month, former president Jacob Zuma removed Dina Pule from his cabinet after a scandal involving the channelling of public resources towards her partner emerged.

This was supported by a parliamentary ethics committee process, which found her guilty and the Public Protector’s report that confirmed she had “acted unlawfully and unethically and persistently misled investigators”.

The sanctions from the parliamentary process, the Public Protector’s report and her dismissal from cabinet were collectively embarrassing enough for Pule not to show up in the parliamentary lists of 2014.

A decade later, enough time had passed and sufficient political amnesia had set in for Pule to once again put up her hand for possible election as an MP.

Luckily for her, she was indeed high enough in the list of the much-reduced ANC parliamentary caucus to merit a seat in parliament.

In the same vein, Pule had also put herself up as a candidate for the leadership of the ANCWL a year earlier and emerged as a deputy secretary-general under the presidency of Tolashe.

And this is where it gets a bit complicated.

Despite the hyperbole that the president consults no one when appointing ministers (which is obviously nonsense in a government of national unity, where parties decide which of their members are deployed to government), he actually does consult.

This was the case even before the GNU, thanks to the ANC’s broad alliance model where even though the communists seem to be the perennial losers in the sharing of the spoils, every core constituency ultimately gets something after lengthy consultations.

When it comes to the Women’s League, the ANC’s internal Granita Pact suggests that the Social Development portfolio must go to an ANCWL deployee.

In this instance, Tolashe as ANCWL president was the one who scored the ministry in 2024.

When she then conspired to have herself disgracefully dismissed from cabinet two years later, the question of who should replace her became an ANCWL matter that the president had to deal with – despite Ntshavheni insisting that the president consults no one.

Listen/read: ActionSA slams Dina Pule appointment as accountability failure

Thanks to the ANC’s internal architecture, which is famous for its deference to tradition and rank rather than agility and common sense, Dina Pule emerged as the candidate appointed by the president as the new Minister of Social Development.

Naturally, the announcement came as a shock to many.

The public vs party 

The obvious problem is that the ANC’s commitment to its internal architecture is now at odds with public expectations about who should be entrusted with key responsibilities.

In this case, the question is not whether Pule is competent enough to head a ministry – no one really knows if or how the president considers the competency question in portfolio allocation anyway.

Rather, the issue is whether a party whose public standing has repeatedly been diminished by the conduct of some of its members can afford to appoint as a minister someone who has been found wanting on so many occasions.

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That the president has made this call – and, of course, the Constitution and the ANC insist it was his ‘exclusive’ decision, so we are expected to accept that proposition notwithstanding its implicit absurdities – in an election year makes one wonder about how intimately he grasps the cleavage between the public expectations and political trade-offs.

One has the ability of alienating voters enough for them to see it as yet another illustration of an ANC that refuses to learn and adapt.

The other is an internal party leadership dilemma that the collective leadership ought to have resolved by understanding that the public prism will not countenance an answer that the president had no choice and that the ANC could not find anyone else.

Shielded from scrutiny?

The president’s magic trick of refusing media interviews means that scrutiny of this decision will be limited to the polite questions submitted by MPs in chambers, and under the rules and points of order, where political hyperbole can be substituted for substantive responses.

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It is unlikely to face the kind of rigorous public interrogation that would examine how such a decision can be justified by a party seeking to restore public trust, especially in an election year.

But perhaps all of this is actually not the ANC’s or the president’s problem, but really an issue of the many citizens who believe that the ANC is committed to reforming itself – the occasional contradictory evidence notwithstanding.

Anyway, good luck to the new minister.