“Take your sweet time to appoint Cabinet,” urges analyst

June 25, 2024 85

Political analyst, Goodenough Mashego, says he doesn’t think the President has been given enough time to form his government, urging for the deployment of a new Cabinet under the Government of National Unity (GNU) not to be rushed.

While President Cyril Ramaphosa took four days to announce his executive in 2019, this time he has taken even longer as negotiations on national executive posts between various political parties, who want different things, continue.

It’s the first time since the dawn of democracy that the ANC-led government has to rope in governance partners at national level after it failed to garner at least 51% of the votes during the May 29 elections.

Mashego says the negotiating teams must take their sweet time as the business of government is continuing smoothly under the watchful eye and guidance of director generals who are ensuring that strategic departmental plans submitted to Parliament are implemented.

Political analyst, Professor Dirk Kotze, says there’s never enough time to complete negotiations.

Prof Kotze’s says it’s actually commendable that Ramaphosa is close to announcing his team of ministers and their deputies in less than a month, when it takes European politicians six months to a year to formulate a national government.

Belgium holds a world record of taking the longest time to formulate a government, concluding coalition talks after 541 days.

On the DA’s negotiation tactics, Mashego says they’ve adopted a strategy lobola negotiators normally uses.

He says while the party has asked for 12 key Cabinet posts, it’s unlikely that it believes it will secure that exact number.

The Democratic Alliance, which serves as the prefect of the GNU coalition, has told the ANC that they expect to get 12 Cabinet positions, including the Deputy President and Minister of International Relations.

The interesting part is that the DA want to deploy their OWN DGs 🙆‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/LQsFeW6dNL

— TK_Nala (@NalaThokozane) June 24, 2024

Mashego has also defended the DA following criticism over its demand to appoint director generals for the departments its cadres will be overseeing.

He believes that South Africans are being simplistic in their analyses of the situation when they accuse the blue party of being hypocritical in wanting to deploy its own people to run government departments while it previously took the ANC to court over the same issue.