Storm likely as Zuma plans to sack minister

JOHANNESBURG

South African President Jacob Zuma has vowed to sack his respected finance minister, a government coalition party confirmed today, in a move which could split the African National Congress (ANC).

Mr Zuma has been at loggerheads with Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan for months, and this week abruptly ordered him to return home from a foreign investment trip as speculation rose of a dramatic political showdown.

Mr Gordhan is supported by several senior ministers and many international investors, as well as being widely admired by ordinary South Africans and veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle.

He has campaigned for controlled spending and against corruption, but Zuma’s allies have accused him of thwarting the president’s desire to enact “radical economic transformation” tackling racial inequality.

“The president informed us of his intention to affect a cabinet reshuffle replacing both the minister and deputy minister of finance,” Mr Solly Mapaila, of the South African Communist Party (SACP), told reporters in Johannesburg.

“We recorded our objection to the intended reshuffle.”

Mr Zuma met with the SACP, which is a junior coalition partner of the dominant ANC, on Monday.

READ: Zuma orders finance minister back from UK

Mr Gordhan’s fate has become a battleground over the future of the ANC, which Nelson Mandela led in the fight against apartheid and when it won the country’s first democratic elections in 1994.

SUCCESSION IN ANC
Mr Zuma is due to step down as head of the party in December, ahead of the 2019 General Election.

He is seen as favouring his ex-wife, former African Union chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, to succeed him ahead of Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa.

“The battle for control of the ANC will... culminate in the defeat of Cyril Ramaphosa, Gordhan and their faction at the December conference,” the Eurasia consultancy predicted in a briefing note.

“This group is then very likely to split off from the ANC in a possible major realignment of South African politics.”

Mr Zuma’s planned sacking of Mr Gordhan may have been put on hold due to the death of celebrated anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada, 87, on Tuesday.

Mr Kathrada was a fierce critic of Zuma, and his funeral on Wednesday became something of a rally against the president, who did not attend at the request of the family.

Gordhan was given a standing ovation at the event.

In December 2015, Zuma unexpectedly sacked finance minister Nhlanhla Nene and replaced him with a little-known lawmaker, triggering panic among investors and a sharp drop in the rand.

Just four days later, Mr Gordhan was appointed to the role to calm the markets.

At the funeral, in a fiery eulogy, former president Kgalema Motlanthe said Mr Kathrada was “deeply disturbed by the current post-apartheid failure of politics”.

“He found current leadership wanting on many fronts... and would not hesitate to call for the resignation of the president of the country with whom the buck stops,” said Mr Motlanthe.

STANDING OVATION
Quoting from a letter Mr Kathrada wrote to Mr Zuma a year ago calling for him to stand down, Mr Motlanthe received long and thunderous applause from mourners — including serving ministers.

“In the face of such persistently widespread criticism... is it asking too much to express the hope that you will choose the correct way that is gaining momentum’ to consider stepping down?” Mr Kathrada wrote in 2016.

Motlanthe said that “354 days ago today comrade Kathy wrote this letter to which a reply has not been forthcoming”.

An unidentified mourner shouted out “down with Zuma” in Zulu with other mourners responding “down”.

“On a day like this we should not mince words, we should say it like it is,” said Mr Motlanthe.

Mr Zuma’s office said in a statement issued ahead of the service that he would “not attend the funeral and memorial service in compliance with the wishes of the family”.

Neeshan Balton, the executive director of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, told Gordhan that “irrespective of whether you are a minister or not in days or weeks to come — you remain true to the values and principles that Ahmed Kathrada would be proud of”.

Mr Balton then asked Gordhan to rise, prompting a standing ovation from the mourners.

Mr Gordhan told local media after the service that Kathrada’s letter to Zuma was a “message to all of us that we have the responsibility to steer this country in the right way, not just for our own pockets and for ourselves but for the benefit of millions of south Africans”.

Opposition EFF party leader Julius Malema tweeted that “speculation is that (Gordhan and deputy finance minister Mcebisi Jonas) may be fired” shortly after the funeral.