Depending on who you spoke to among those who regarded themselves as being in President Cyril Ramaphosa's inner circle at the end of last year, health minister Zweli Mkhize was either a huge asset or a great threat to the president.
Those who saw him as an asset credited the minister - the man they affectionately call "Bhuti" (Big Brother) in some KwaZulu-Natal ANC and government circles - for much of the good PR Ramaphosa and his government received for their handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, especially during the early days of the national lockdown.
Within this crowd there was already talk of a likely Ramaphosa-Mkhize ticket that would see the latter become the president's running mate as a deputy presidential candidate in the run-up to the ANC's 2022 national conference. In their minds the only stumbling block to this combo would be the expected gender-parity campaign they expect will be driven by the ANC Women's League, demanding that all elected party positions - from the presidency downwards - be shared equally between women and men.
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Those who viewed Mkhize as a threat believed that he harboured ambitions of running for the ANC presidency once again in 2022 and feared his public profile had been greatly enhanced by the fact that, in his portfolio as health minister, he had become the face of the country's fight against the pandemic.
The president cannot expect the public to believe him when he says one of his cabinet's priorities is to fight corruption within the public sector when the health minister is not asked, at the very least, to step aside from his duties while investigations are being concluded
Mkhize was one of the ANC leaders who threw their hats into the ring for the party presidency in 2017. Although he ran a decent campaign that was taken seriously by outsiders, especially big business and the diplomatic community, it had two major flaws.
For one, he had no real backing from his home province, KwaZulu-Natal, which was to send the biggest delegation to the conference. A stronghold of the then outgoing ANC president Jacob Zuma at the time, KwaZulu-Natal had still not forgiven Bhuti for being among the first to publicly stand up to "Baba" when the latter fired finance minister Nhlanhla Nene in December 2015 and replaced him with the Gupta favourite Des van Rooyen.
Secondly, in those ANC constituencies that were opposed to Zuma, Mkhize was still not fully trusted - having been very close to the man for much of his march to power and in his early years at the Union Buildings.
Hence his 2017 campaign didn't have much impact and resulted in him being left out of the party's so-called top six. However, it did not mark the end of his career. Instead, Mkhize's appointment to the health portfolio seemed to be giving him a new lease of political life.
His was among a few Ramaphosa cabinet appointments that were universally hailed as well deserved. He was certainly not in the cabinet merely because he had bet on the right horse at Nasrec, nor was he there just because the president needed to keep the Zuma camp onside. Even long before the Covid-19 crisis hit, there was confidence that the country's public health system would improve remarkably under his guidance.
But the Digital Vibes scandal has changed all of that. Surely even a blind loyalist of Mkhize can see that he can't possibly continue to work as health minister - effectively leading the country's battle with the coronavirus - with this huge dark cloud hanging over him.
While he may have started in the current administration as a huge asset for the president, continued revelations of how his associates allegedly helped themselves to the state coffers, especially at a time when all efforts were supposed to be on saving lives and preventing the spread of the pandemic, have turned him into a liability.
The president cannot expect the public to believe him when he says one of his cabinet's priorities is to fight corruption within the public sector when the health minister is not asked, at the very least, to step aside from his duties while investigations are being concluded.
It is possible that Ramaphosa's delay in acting is motivated by fear that doing so hastily and without an independent authority such as the Special Investigating Unit concluding its investigations into the matter may turn Mkhize into a "victim" in the eyes of some constituencies within the ANC. After all, the president has just emerged from a bruising leadership fight with his now suspended secretary-general, Ace Magashule, and may have little appetite for a new one.
But that is his problem. Ours as citizens is to demand that our public representatives make it their "new normal" to step aside when facing serious and credible allegations of corruption and other forms of malfeasance.
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