While international relations & co-operation minister Ronald Lamola was in Germany signing agreements from vocational training to a €200m just energy transition concessional loan, and in Spain for the president’s working visit, it emerged South Africa finally has a man in Washington.
The Presidency confirmed the new ambassador as former constitutional negotiator and apartheid-era minister Roelf Meyer, who retired from active politics in 2000 after cofounding the UDM with former Transkei leader Bantu Holomisa.
Public views differ sharply. Supporters frame as tactical brilliance the choice of a white Afrikaner to counter Afrikaner nationalists’ grievances, as touted by the Solidarity Movement and AfriForum, which seem to resonate with US President Donald Trump’s administration. Critics question why an old Nat apartheid insider got the job. Cynics raise eyebrows that President Cyril Ramaphosa felt the need to go back 30 or so years to his fly-fishing, constitutional assembly negotiating counterpart to find someone to send to Washington.
As far as government was concerned, the presidential announcement was just that, and no-one else had anything to say. This silence could be read as reflecting tensions between the president and his foreign affairs minister, who the presidency has described as assisting in international relations.
The real question though is systemic — should ambassadors be announced or not? Announcing South Africa’s US ambassador and not others is an arbitrary approach that is confusing and makes South Africa look amateurish.
Across Europe, from the UK to Germany and Finland, ambassador appointments are officially announced on government or foreign affairs ministry websites after appointment by the king or president, following recommendations from identified decision-making structures and processes such as vetting.
The real question though is systemic — should ambassadors be announced or not? Announcing South Africa’s US ambassador and not others is an arbitrary approach that is confusing and makes South Africa look amateurish.
Only one proviso governs this — the host country would already have accepted the incoming ambassador, known as agrément, before any announcement. That step before credentials are presented in a public ceremony is crucial; ambassadors can’t be imposed.
In South Africa’s fellow Brics member China, state media and the foreign affairs ministry announce ambassadors after President Xi Jinping had made the appointments. In Nigeria, ambassadors are announced after a process that includes parliamentary screening of nominees submitted by the president. In the US, presidential nominees for ambassadorships must be confirmed in public Senate hearings.
South Africa, by contrast, has an opaque system without publicly set criteria or qualifications, or a standardised process for announcements. The constitution says in section 84(2)(i) that “the president is responsible… for appointing ambassadors, plenipotentiaries and diplomatic and consular representatives”, and it is left at that.
Perhaps guidelines exist — the department of international relations is known to make submissions to the presidency — but these are not publicly accessible. According to a 2015 parliamentary reply, the department runs a three-month training programme for heads of missions that includes “high-level briefings” from political desks, finance, human resources and more. In South Africa’s rumour-filled politics, that programme usually tips off the grapevine about potential ambassadors.
South Africa has had sterling ambassadors in the past, such as Barbara Masekela (France, US), Zola Skweyiya (UK) and Tony Leon (Argentina). But the track record is wobbly. It includes, for example, Bruce Koloane, who as chief state protocol officer in April 2013 gave the go-ahead for the Gupta plane carrying wedding guests to land at the Waterkloof military airbase. He resigned as ambassador to the Netherlands rather than return to a job at Pretoria HQ in September 2019 during the Zondo commission into state capture, according to the reply to a parliamentary question.
Too often it seems the luck of the draw, or the strength of political connectivity, determines who becomes ambassador, with announcements made on a whim rather than through process. It is this lack of process that makes Meyer’s already difficult job in the at-best chilly Washington political and diplomatic circles even harder.
• Merten is a veteran political journalist specialising in parliament and governance.
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