<\/p>\n
It all started slowly enough with the dramatic descent into disgrace of ANC Women\u2019s League (ANCWL) president Sisisi Tolashe, who was also serving as Minister of Social Development.<\/p>\n
Tolashe\u2019s rise to the ANCWL presidency coincided with the exit of her predecessor Bathabile Dlamini. Dlamini had \u2013 as tends to happen in political circles \u2013 a loyal foot soldier in Lumka Oliphant, who had served in the ministry during Dlamini\u2019s tenure.<\/p>\n
Read:<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
For Tolashe\u2019s sins, her approach to governance, management and alleged nepotism were scandalous enough for various allegations to emerge, and Oliphant\u2019s assertions about her to essentially be validated.<\/p>\n
Listen:\u00a0GNU faces new test over cabinet power struggle<\/p>\n
So frequent and embarrassing were the scandals that President Cyril Ramaphosa was forced to pull the plug and remove Tolashe from cabinet.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Exactly a year ago, the president had exercised that same prerogative to remove Democratic Alliance (DA)\u00a0Deputy Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition Andrew Whitfield, who had committed the cardinal sin of leaving the country without permission.<\/p>\n
President\u2019s \u2018sole prerogative\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n In reminding us that the president owed us no explanation, Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni stated that: \u201cThe decision to appoint or remove or to reshuffle ministers and deputy ministers, that\u2019s the sole prerogative of the president. He exercises that without consulting anyone, but that\u2019s his sole decision.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n This means the president is singularly responsible and accountable for the bad decisions and the good choices he makes.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Except, of course, this is all really a load of hyperbolic nonsense.<\/p>\n ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n A few days before the latest cabinet reshuffle, the DA\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Listen\/read:<\/p>\n When Hill-Lewis ran and won in the race that Steenhuisen opted out of, the internal political power balance naturally shifted and Hill-Lewis \u2013 like any leader \u2013 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.<\/p>\n The tension point emerged when Hill-Lewis\u2019s recommendations for a shuffle included removing Steenhuisen from a ministerial position to the less vaunted position of deputy minister.<\/p>\n \u2018Granita Pact\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n The fallout from the demotion stems from the proverbial \u2018Granita Pact\u2019 (gentlemen\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n Read: Steenhuisen demoted as Ramaphosa reshuffles cabinet<\/p>\n 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 \u2013 Tony Leon \u2013 and the lobbying firm that he runs, which apparently seeks to champion the interests of its clients through directly engaging DA ministers in government.<\/p>\n The escalating scandal would have been perfect fodder for the ANC ahead of the electoral campaign season if Ramaphosa hadn\u2019t decided \u2013 at the time of announcing the shuffle \u2013 that sabotaging the ANC would be a good idea.<\/p>\n Dina Pule\u2019s political return<\/strong><\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n ADVERTISEMENT:<\/p>\n CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n This was supported by a parliamentary ethics committee process, which found her guilty and the Public Protector\u2019s report that confirmed she had \u201cacted unlawfully and unethically and persistently misled investigators\u201d.<\/p>\n The sanctions from the parliamentary process, the Public Protector\u2019s report and her dismissal from cabinet were collectively embarrassing enough for Pule not to show up in the parliamentary lists of 2014.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Luckily for her, she was indeed high enough in the list of the much-reduced ANC parliamentary caucus to merit a seat in parliament.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n And this is where it gets a bit complicated.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n This was the case even before the GNU, thanks to the ANC\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n When it comes to the Women\u2019s League, the ANC\u2019s internal Granita Pact suggests that the Social Development portfolio must go to an ANCWL deployee.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n In this instance, Tolashe as ANCWL president was the one who scored the ministry in 2024.<\/p>\n 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 \u2013 despite Ntshavheni insisting that the president consults no one.<\/p>\n Listen\/read: ActionSA slams Dina Pule appointment as accountability failure<\/p>\n Thanks to the ANC\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n Naturally, the announcement came as a shock to many.<\/p>\n ADVERTISEMENT:<\/p>\n CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n The public vs party\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The obvious problem is that the ANC\u2019s commitment to its internal architecture is now at odds with public expectations about who should be entrusted with key responsibilities.<\/p>\n In this case, the question is not whether Pule is competent enough to head a ministry \u2013 no one really knows if or how the president considers the competency question in portfolio allocation anyway.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n 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.<\/p>\n Read:<\/p>\n That the president has made this call \u2013 and, of course, the Constitution and the ANC insist it was his \u2018exclusive\u2019 decision, so we are expected to accept that proposition notwithstanding its implicit absurdities \u2013 in an election year makes one wonder about how intimately he grasps the cleavage between the public expectations and political trade-offs.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Shielded from scrutiny?<\/strong><\/p>\n The president\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n Read\/listen:<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n But perhaps all of this is actually not the ANC\u2019s or the president\u2019s problem, but really an issue of the many citizens who believe that the ANC is committed to reforming itself \u2013 the occasional contradictory evidence notwithstanding.<\/p>\n Anyway, good luck to the new minister.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n #Living #shattered #veneer #unilateral #prerogatives<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It all started slowly enough with the dramatic descent into disgrace of ANC Women\u2019s League (ANCWL) president Sisisi Tolashe, who was also serving as Minister of Social Development. Tolashe\u2019s rise… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10236,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2740,13428,13425,13427,13426],"class_list":["post-12096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-investing","tag-living","tag-prerogatives","tag-shattered","tag-unilateral","tag-veneer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
The DA\u2019s bid to broaden its appeal<\/div>\n\n
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