After bungling relations with the world’s superpower for the past few years, SA has a magnificent opportunity to reset its relationship with the US. President Cyril Ramaphosa now needs to appoint a new ambassador to the US.
In a dramatic turn of events, Washington expelled Ebrahim Rasool, SA’s ambassador to the US, over his undiplomatic remarks about Donald Trump. Among other things, he characterised Trump as leading a white supremacist movement in the US.
In booting him out last Friday, Marco Rubio, Trump’s secretary of state, described Rasool as a “race-baiting politician”, who has been declared persona non grata.
Rasool, the former ANC premier of the Western Cape, was a political appointee who had served a successful stint during Barack Obama’s second term.
When he was named last year, there was excitement as the bar had been set so low. His predecessor, Nomaindia Mfeketo, another ANC politician, had spent months in SA because of ill health. This happened as bilateral relations were deteriorating.
SA’s post-apartheid diplomatic postings have not departed much from the apartheid-era ones. They have been a hybrid of political appointees who have fallen out of active politics — such as former ministers and mayors — and career diplomats. The latter category has often dominated postings to hardship missions, and Tiffany posts have tended to go to politicians such as Rasool, and so on.
Since Rasool’s expulsion, speculation has been rife about who Ramaphosa will pick to be his top diplomat in Washington.
This newspaper is not in the business of choosing ministers and ambassadors. However, it is in the business of supporting causes, policies and candidates that will champion and advance SA’s national interest and constitutional values.
Every so often, his predecessors, including Nelson Mandela, his role model, have picked ambassadors from opposition ranks.
SA is blessed with talent.
We urge the president to focus on two factors: first, in the search for Rasool’s successor, he has to cast his eye beyond names submitted to him by his party’s deployment committee, which remains in active service even after court challenges; and second, as leader of the government of national unity (GNU), his shortlist and ultimate choice would be enriched if it were a product of consultation — not negotiation — with his GNU partners.
It is worth clarifying the second point. To be clear, we are not proposing a task team to invite, interview and suggest names of who becomes our ambassador to the US. Instead, we are suggesting that the president’s pool ought to be wider and deeper than the ANC’s redundant cadres or over-recycled career diplomats.
Every so often, his predecessors, including Nelson Mandela, his role model, have picked ambassadors from opposition ranks.
What matters the most to us and, by extension, to Ramaphosa should be the following attributes: loyalty to SA’s constitution; a clear appreciation of our national interest and the inextricable link between our foreign policy and economic interests; an understanding of SA’s place in the world; and, crucially, of Trump’s Make America Great Again — a policy platform on which he was elected.
As well as being a clear-minded diplomat, the candidate should demonstrate an understanding of Trump’s first two months in office, especially his executive orders, and has to show how they will deal with — and communicate — attempts to strong-arm SA back to its traumatic past of divisions in relation to SA’s vision.
We urge the president not to squander this opportunity.
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