ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula says the ANC wants to leave it up to President Cyril Ramaphosa regarding who should succeed Ebrahim Rasool as South Africa’s ambassador to the world’s most powerful country, the US.
Mbalula said while the ANC NEC meeting convening at the Birchwood Hotel, east of Gauteng, will discuss international relations issues, they will not give directives about who Ramaphosa must appoint.
Rasool expelled after chastising US president
The replacement was necessitated after US President Donald Trump’s aggressive administration summarily expelled Rasool after he correctly characterised the man in charge there for the supremacist that he is.
Mbalula said the ANC does not concern itself with who becomes ambassadors, of any country for that matter. Such is the purview of the president and Dirco (Department of International Relations and Cooperation).
“The president will deal with the US ambassador issue in government. It is not an ANC call. We have long deferred such matters to government,” said Mbalula.
“As much as many people believe that the ANC deploys ambassadors, it is not true. But we too, like all others, can make suggestions to the president. We have given the president the exclusive rights to deal with matters of the deployment of diplomats of our country.
Diplomats are not ANC deployees
“That is why we must dispel the myth that diplomats are ANC deployees. There are many people from other political parties, even now, in our foreign missions, who do not come from ANC ranks who are serving and have served.”
Mbalula seemed to suggest that the next ambassador to the US might come from outside the ANC ranks.
He mentioned how this has happened before with the likes of Tony Leon. The DA leader had served as ambassador to Argentina during the Jacob Zuma years.
Ironically, Leon is touted and being lobbied to replace Rasool by his party, the DA.
“Tony Leon was an ambassador in Argentina, and even before him there were others. So it is not about the ANC. We believe the government must look into South Africans broadly who can serve us good as a country internationally. That is what is important,” Mbalula went on.
“There could be ANC people who are former ministers who might be deployed. But that in itself is a criterion the president might employ to deploy people. Even before people are deployed, they are trained as diplomats.”
Lindiwe Zulu
Within the ANC, some have raised the name of former Minister of Social Development Lindiwe Zulu to get the nod.
Zulu’s added advantage would also be her other former role as ANC’s NEC subcommittee on International Relations chairperson.
The ANC NEC meeting that resumed on Friday will go on until Monday.
