Surely the president has run out of time and can dither no longer. If not in the coming hours, he surely will announce changes and additions to his cabinet in the coming week.
If not, what’s the point? He may just as well then keep the same executive — with a vacant public service and administration post, a part-time transport minister and a keen-to-go deputy president — until next year’s general election.
The long wait has been baffling and tiring. For a president who, just two months ago, received a major political boost when he was resoundingly re-elected for a second term as ANC leader, Cyril Ramaphosa is extremely hesitant to wield his authority to shape a cabinet he wants.
A charitable assessment of how he appointed his ministers when he first came to office is that he had been dealt a bad hand by the outcome of the 2017 ANC national conference.
That this forced him to appoint even his ardent opponents to the executive for the sake of keeping the peace and securing unity in a deeply divided ruling party.
But the outcome of the 2022 national conference was far more favourable to him than that of 2017, so why is he hesitant to make the moves he wanted to make all along?
Granted — if you believe whispers from some of those who claim to be in his inner circle — he may not have got the party deputy president he wanted and his new national executive committee may have sprinklings of what was once known as the RET forces, but his authority in the ANC is now unquestioned.
Perhaps the answer is that he is the kind of president who does not like to rock the boat, even when he has the upper hand and his rivals are at his mercy.
As the days go by without the much-anticipated cabinet reshuffle, it is becoming clear that the president is caught between introducing sweeping changes to the executive or confining himself to filling vacant positions and shifting a minister or two sideways.
The former is what seems to be expected by most citizens, many of whom complain about the quality of the cabinet given the myriad crises facing the nation.
A complete overhaul would signal a renewal of the executive, where the president would rid himself of dead wood and individuals he never wanted but were apparently imposed on him by the balance of forces within the ANC after the 2017 conference.
As the days go by without the much-anticipated cabinet reshuffle, it is becoming clear that the president is caught between introducing sweeping changes to the executive or confining himself to filling vacant positions and shifting a minister or two sideways
He would replace them with a team of people he believed would help him reduce load-shedding, improve service delivery and contribute towards economic growth and job creation — all of which are elements that can help him and his party retain their parliamentary majority at next year’s elections.
There are those in the ANC lobbying for this, arguing that a cabinet reshuffle is the first important step in the president’s re-election campaign and its success is dependent on his boldness and a willingness to show the electorate that it is no longer business as usual for the party.
But there is an opposing school of thought. One that says the president should take his time and act with caution. The general election is just a year away, they argue, so why effect a major cabinet shake-up when you will have the opportunity to do so next year?
The president, they argue, should rather focus on maintaining maximum unity within the ANC and ensuring that all hands are on deck as it prepares for the elections.
The obvious problem with this approach is that Ramaphosa and the ANC may not have the privilege to choose the cabinet after next year’s election if the minimal changes he makes to the executive fail to convince the electorate that his administration can do much better than it has done so far.
So which route is he going to take? Does he just appoint Paul Mashatile as deputy president in the place of David Mabuza, replace Luthuli House-bound Fikile Mbalula as transport minister, fill the vacancy left by Ayanda Dlodlo as public service and administration minister, name the new electricity minister and then leave everything else as is?
Or does he drop the likes of women and youth minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, arts and culture minister Nathi Mthethwa, trade and industry minister Ebrahim Patel and others who have not shot the lights out in cabinet and whose removal would not lose him any of the internal ANC constituencies?
Does he go even further by removing from his cabinet political rivals such as tourism minister Lindiwe Sisulu and co-operative governance minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma — both of whom publicly called for his resignation over Phala Phala last year?
We will know soon enough. But given Ramaphosa’s track record over the past five years, expect him to play it safe and let the status quo remain.
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