Politics, it is said, is the art of the possible, a truism confirmed this week in President Cyril Ramaphosa's choice of those who will take up the plush seats in his national executive.
Who knows how different his cabinet might have looked had he been entirely free to choose whomsoever he wanted? But we all know that Ramaphosa, much like SA itself, is beholden to the peculiar circumstances pertaining in the ANC, and his job is made all the harder by the wasted years of the era of former president Jacob Zuma. Even the timing of Ramaphosa's announcement was not entirely of his own choosing, delayed by several days to allow Deputy President David Mabuza to "clear his name" during a brief tea-and-biscuit session with the party's "integrity commission".
So what do Ramaphosa's choices tell us about the state of SA and its place in the world? What do they say about the balance of forces in the ANC that, for now at least, allows, or doesn't, Ramaphosa to be the president most of us want him to be?
First, the Zondo and other commissions gave him breathing room to at least get shot of the more egregious exemplars of state capture and brazen looting. So it's an overdue farewell to Bathabile Dlamini and Nomvula Mokonyane who, in their arrogance and disdain for the constitution, exhibited a Marie Antoinette-ish disregard for the public that cannot have any place in a democratic SA. Few will mourn their passing from high office, and we can only hope that the disgraceful template from which they were cut will be discarded once and for all.
Second, though we are indeed a sovereign state, that sovereignty has been compromised by the misspending, theft and looting that have brought the once-mighty Eskom to its knees, drowning in debt and threatening to pull the whole republic down with it. Therefore, Ramaphosa had no choice but to continue in the finance portfolio with the recipe-sharing bon vivant Tito Mboweni. The markets would simply not have allowed anyone else, such are the constraints within which SA is now forced to operate.
Similarly with old hands in key economic portfolios: Gwede Mantashe in mining, to which energy has been added, and, in public enterprises, Pravin Gordhan, the cabinet minister upon whose shoulders more rests than anyone else. Another veteran, Ebrahim Patel, has been given trade & industry, completing a triumvirate who carry our hopes for our now dormant economy.
The markets would simply not have allowed anyone else
— Sunday Times on appointment of Tito Mboweni as finance minister
Third, though Ramaphosa's choices are, technically speaking, his prerogative, the ghoulish presence of the Zuma-praising ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule was never far from his shoulder. Perhaps that is why such characters as David Mahlobo, Zuma's former spy minister, have made it back, his tenure a constant reminder that while Zuma may be gone, his supporters are not yet entirely without influence.
So Ramaphosa has done what he could, given limited room to manoeuvre. He even threw in the distraction of "Aunty" Patricia de Lille to liven things up, and none of those at the cabinet table will be able to shake off the knowledge that she was the first to blow the whistle on the arms-deal rot, the ANC's first foray into industrial-scale corruption.
Beaten down as SA is by state capture, factional politics and a stricken economy, we might be tempted to expect too much of our national executive. Yes, it has important tasks ahead, but for the victors these are the spoils: chauffeurs, travel, armies of assistants and perks paid for by you, the taxpayer. Ramaphosa had a lot of people to keep happy, so hopes of a drastic trimming of the cabinet were always unrealistic.
Is it too much to ask, though, that these men and women, peering down at us from their fancy cars and luxury homes, will not forget that we, too, have our hopes and expectations?
It is not just a new ANC administration that is on trial here. The onus is on Ramaphosa's chosen few to prove by word and deed that the constitution and democratic government are indeed worth having, and are fit for purpose for the tough years ahead.
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