Speculation is rife over whether president Ramaphosa will reshuffle his cabinet before or after his 2023 State of the Nation Address (SONA).
The president previously stated that he would consider reshuffling his cabinet at the end of January. The SONA will be given on Thursday 9 February.
Resignations of ANC parliamentarians have resulted in speculation as to the identity of new members of parliament.
On Monday, two ANC MPs, Melvyn Dirks and Tshilidzi Munyai, resigned, and yesterday it was announced that KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta), Sihle Zikalala, is to be redeployed to Parliament.
Zikalala earned the highest number of votes of any ANC member at the National Executive Conference (NEC) held in December 2022. TimesLIVE obtained access to correspondence dated 30 January 2023 from parliamentary speaker, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, to the ANC’s secretary general, Fikile Mbalula, confirming the swearing-in of Paul Mashatile to Parliament. Mashatile is likely to be appointed to the deputy president position, as David Mabuza is expected to resign. The way Ramaphosa handles dissenters from within the party such as Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Lindiwe Zulu is viewed as a decisive test for the President. Dirks, who was one of the MPs who voted in favour of impeaching Ramaphosa after the Phala Phala scandal, has already stepped down.
At least 40 candidates in the newly appointed NEC are tainted with allegations of corruption.
This will be the President’s third cabinet reshuffle, in comparison to former president Zuma’s 11.