Amid the furore over the choice of Mcebisi Jonas as President Cyril Ramaphosa’s envoy to the US, South Africans are struggling to understand how appointing the former deputy finance minister might help to de-escalate tensions.
In a speech in 2020, Jonas described US President Donald Trump as a “racist homophobe” and a “narcissistic right-winger”; the Presidency does not think this is a problem, despite the fact that Ebrahim Rasool got himself expelled from Washington barely a month ago for similarly unflattering remarks about the US leader. Explaining his comments, delivered in a speech at the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, Jonas said “these things happen” and he had been speaking as an “activist”, not a government representative.
In a South Africa that has a dearth of political heroes, Jonas stands out, helped by his dramatic announcement in 2016 that the Gupta family had offered him the position of minister of finance. He rejected the offer because, in his words, it made “a mockery of our hard-earned democracy, the trust of our people and no-one apart from the president of the republic appoints ministers”.
Because of this, one might think Jonas is exactly the kind of person needed to reason with the White House. However, the odds are stacked against him, thanks to his own utterances, his business interests, President Donald Trump’s singular dislike of South Africa and the influence of individuals like South African-born billionaire Elon Musk on him.
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