On Monday morning, Business Day was reported that the finance minister in South Africa had asked to be allowed to resign from his job after the double whammy of revelations that he had lied about meeting the Guptas, and the claims about his sons’ creative business affairs. This, coupled with the untimely death of the then Environmental Affairs minister, it meant that the President had mounting pressure to refashion his Cabinet. To add to this complexity, the Medium-Term Budgetary statement was two weeks away, and the finance minister felt would be inappropriate for him to deliver it. It would mean not only trouble from the opposition parties while he was delivering the speech but would also be the second time this year that a finance minister on their way out is delivering one of the two big set-piece financial speeches of the year, as such, the Home Affairs Minister delivered the statement instead. The first problem that the president had was that of the finance minister appearing to want to go of his own volition, as he felt he betrayed the nation’s trust. There was no evidence in public that he behaved improperly because of his Saxonwold meetings. Thus, for him to leave office over this issue, while the other ministers are not owning up for their own wrongdoing, feels downright unfair. This issue of lingering injustice may strengthen the case for a big reshuffle, a moment for the president to finally clean house. While this might be a smart move on one level, it might have been difficult to pull off on another. It would show that he is prepared to be assertive, and to lead,and would strengthen his claim that there is in fact a change in the current administration. It would also give him more power through the state while possibly strengthening the current administration’s image with the electorate. This could be important, considering that opinion polls appear to offer vastly variable outcomes for the 2019 election result. Broad society might also welcome seeing the back of some people who are accused of governing for their own, or any other contrary benefit. But such strong action could also tip him over the edge of what is possible within the current administration right now. One of the big accusations against the former president was that he reshuffled his Cabinet without consulting Luthuli House. As then the ruling partys’ secretary general explained after one important appointment of an important politician into the finance ministry, the Top Six presidential executive members are supposed to be consulted before a reshuffle. This accusation was also levelled during the reshuffle that the newly appointed politician be removed as Finance Minister in 2017. For this to work, the president would need to get current Secretary-General A and Deputy Secretary- General B on board, which seems unlikely. Still, can’t veto the president’s decisions, and Deputy President SR and Treasurer PM as the chair would probably back the president. However, the next meeting of the national executive committee, where the balance of power could be different, might spell trouble for the president. At the same time, there is another problem that he has to face. If he allows the finance minister to go now, it is because of a series of events put in play by the opposition party leader comrade JM. The nightmare would be to appoint a new Cabinet, and then, two weeks later, for comrade JM to start tweeting claims about one of the new ministers. What would president CR do then? And this is one of the big quandaries here. President CR may well feel that he needs to convince the finance minister to remain, not because it’s the morally correct thing to do, but because he cannot afford to let comrade JM pull the strings. Coupled to this is the fact that it appears, for now at least, that comrade JM and those allied to the former president JZ have the same agenda, in that both want to weaken president CR. Their agendas could obviously soon align again, and possibly even for a longer period. This means president CR has to tread carefully with any action, as he faces the distinct possibility of a crisis continuing all the way into the 2019 elections. However, just to add some complexity to an already decidedly not simple situation, the opposition’s deputy leader, FS, tweeted on Monday, in response to a point by a university Vice-Chancellor AH, that there was a completely different source for the information.

Present a well narrated discourse on your understanding of “impeachment”.