South Africa’s Ramaphosa announces cabinet including former opposition leader | World News

By Tim Cocks and Tannur Anders

JOHANNESBURG, — South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Sunday appointed former opposition leader John Steenhuisen as agriculture minister, bringing in the Democratic Alliance and other parties into his new coalition cabinet.

Ramaphosa’s African National Congress was forced to ally with rival parties to stay in power after losing its majority for the first time in three decades in May 29 elections.

The announcement of the composition of the new cabinet of the national unity government follows weeks of prolonged and sometimes acrimonious negotiations.

Ramaphosa retained the ANC’s Enoch Godongwana as finance minister while Ronald Lamola was named international relations and cooperation minister, replacing Naledi Pandor.

Gwede Mantashe remained Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources, but the President removed energy from his portfolio. The combination of mineral resources had been seen by many as creating a bias in favor of coal as a source of energy production.

Energy will now fall under the portfolio of Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa.

“These men and women we have appointed to the executive… reflect the diversity of our nation,” Ramaphosa said. “In a spirit of partnership and collaboration, the new government will work together.”

The wrangling over who gets which cabinet seat has been the final hurdle in forming a government that now faces the task of reviving a moribund economy, repairing crumbling roads and power stations and creating jobs for the one-third of South Africans who are unemployed.

“We look forward to being part of a new era in South Africa’s democratic journey and bringing real, tangible change to the millions of citizens who voted for her,” Steenhuisen said in a statement following the announcement.

Some minor parties have also seen their leaders receive ministerial posts.

The ANC was hit during the elections

For decades, the ANC has built on its legacy of ending apartheid 30 years ago, when Nelson Mandela came to power and managed to reconcile a country deeply divided along racial, ethnic and class lines.

But voters were angered by the ANC’s poor record in providing basic services, including water, schools and electricity.

“It’s a big shake-up, with very few old faces, which is a good thing,” said Melanie Verwoerd, a political analyst and former South African diplomat. “I think it’s a very positive step overall and of course it’s very positive that they were able to achieve it.”

The ability of the current coalition of former enemies to improve the ANC’s record may depend on the extent to which they can put aside their ideological differences, analysts say. There are several potential obstacles to policy development.

The DA wants to scrap some of the ANC’s black empowerment programs, saying they have mainly made a politically connected business elite fabulously wealthy while much of the black majority remains poor.

He opposes the ANC’s desire to expropriate land – much of it in white hands as a legacy of settler conquest and the entrenched white minority power that followed – without compensation and give it to black farmers.

The DA is also seeking to scrap South Africa’s minimum wage, currently set at R27.58 an hour, arguing that it makes the workforce uncompetitive.

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