South Africa’s ruling party unhappy with Zuma’s cabinet reshuffle

In response to requests for comment about President Zuma’s reshuffle, Mkhize says that unlike previous consultations about reshuffles his briefing this time around was different. The trio make up half of the party’s committee of top officials.

“What just happened is an absolute upset – to get rid of a man with great capabilities, an intelligent man who served his country and his people well, in such an unsolicited and unexpected manner”. Much of the ANC leadership is appalled by this, as well they should be.

South Africans protest President Jacob Zuma’s cabinet reshuffle outside Parliament in Cape Town on Friday. The rand was the world’s worst-performing currency this week, while bond yields jumped to their highest levels since January.

Kathrada, who was jailed alongside Mandela on Robben Island, died on Tuesday in a Johannesburg hospital after a short illness following brain surgery.

He said he had no intention of shifting people around at Treasury or bringing new people in to replace those who had worked with Gordhan and Jonas.

Party leaders also connected “the dramatic cabinet events” to a court case in which “the Gupta-linked Vardospan company” was seeking to force the minister of finance and central bank to take over “the obscure Habib bank”. Zuma clearly went against the wishes of senior party members, allies, business leaders and opposition parties. “The actions Zuma has [taken] against Gordhan is based exclusively on assumptions”.

Zuma was barred from attending the funeral of anti-apartheid hero Ahmed Kathrada on Wednesday after the latter had asked him to resign past year following a series of corruption scandals against him.

Gwede Mantashe, the party’s secretary general, told Talk Radio 702 the process leading to the cabinet reshuffle had made him “jittery and uncomfortable”. “South Africans must not pay for nonsense that happens elsewhere”, News 24 quoted Gordhan as saying. “Their crime is incorruptibility. We need to manage those changes and those who come into the new positions need to have that sense of responsibility and those that have left those positions also need to exercise their responsibility because we need to manage the transition in the national interest”.

Gordhan was in the midst of his yearly investor roadshow to the United Kingdom and the U.S., trying to convince ratings agencies that the country is politically stable, when he was summarily hauled back home by Zuma.

Zuma even faced calls to resign from beyond the grave.

“I am fully aware that we are at a highly politicised, polarised and contentious moment in the history of our young democracy”, Gigaba, previously Home Affairs minister, said.

South African newly appointed Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba briefs the Press at the South African government Communication’s office on April 1, 2017 in Pretoria, South Africa. Gordhan has said the report is a lie.

The dismissal of finance minister and other cabinet ministers is expected to cause chaos in the country.