Johannesburg - President Cyril Ramaphosa had to compromise between various factions within the ANC when he made changes to his cabinet on Monday.
Political analysts said this was very clear especially with the number of ministers that were seen as compromised, but survived the chop.
Wits Professor Susan Booysen said it was clear as Ramaphosa spoke that were behind the scenes negotiations that had taken place as the announcement was delayed for over an hour.
“It is really a compromise and that’s evidence that he has to juggle between two factions and his new dawn comes after he has had to compromise in the process,” said Booysen.
A number of ministers such as former social development minister Bathabile Dlamini, who is now the Minister in the Presidency for Women, and the Nomvula Mokonyane who is now the Communications Minister, have survived even with the poor performance of their departments.
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Booysen said Dlamini has the ANC Women’s League backing her and that’s how she survived the cabinet reshuffle.
Malusi Gigaba who returned to his old portfolio as the Minister of Home Affairs, has also been criticized for being involved in state capture.
Another portfolio that has received public attention has been the appointment of Bheki Cele as the Minister of Police. Cele was previously the Police Commissioner and his tenure was seen as the beginning of a militant police force that encouraged the use of force.
He popularised the term “shoot to kill”.
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UNISA Professor Shadrack Gutto said Cele would have to deal decisively with the issues faced by the police force especially in terms of performance.
“A lot of them are involved in corrupt practices. And when they do investigations they do not do proper investigations and I think that needs to be dealt with, whether Bheki Cele will be able to deal with this of weakness is something we have to wait for,” said Gutto.
But the removal of a number of ministers that were seen as being part of state capture has been widely welcomed. These ministers include; Des van Rooyen, Lynne Brown and Mosebezni Zwane.
The focus for Ramaphosa now is to restructure the size of his cabinet. He explained at the announcement of the cabinet changes that the restructuring was still on the cards.
“The cabinet changes come across as cabinet reshuffling rather than restructuring as he promised in his State of the Nation Address. But I think he should have probably started with restructuring instead of dealing reshuffling first,” said Gutto.