By Jean-Jacques Cornish
Cheryl Carolus is to cut short her successful term as South Africa's high commissioner to London, and will return home to take up the post of chief executive officer of Satour, the tourism authority.
Carolus is expected back in September, five months before her four-year contract expires. The South African government is reportedly seeking agreement from Britain for Lindiwe Mabuza, at present South Africa's high commissioner to Malaysia, to replace Carolus in London.
A recognised poet, Mabuza was formerly South Africa's ambassador to Bonn. In the apartheid era she served as the ANC representative in Washington and Stockholm.
Mabuza's new appointment will continue the tradition, established during the Mandela presidency, of sending mostly women ambassadors to the wealthy G7 countries.
Carolus, a former high school teacher who became a political activist in the mid-1980s and rose to the position of secretary-general of the ANC, has long said she wished to take a break from active politics.
Her term in London is generally regarded as having been highly successful.
This year she presided over the high-profile Celebrate South Africa campaign, which featured open-air concerts and celebrity endorsement for the country.
The excellent state of British-South African relations considerably eased Carolus's task. The British media have been fond of personifying this by playing up the close personal relationship between Carolus and her British counterpart, Ann Grant.
Early in her tenure, Carolus privately expressed misgivings that the attention given to her decorative, ethnic costumes might detract from the seriousness of her job with arguably South Africa's closest European friend.
Her diplomatic colleagues, however, reassured her that her colourful image was greatly to the benefit of the new South Africa.
The acumen she showed in projecting an attractive and appealing image of South Africa made her a natural to head Satour.