Dlamini-Zuma may be set for Cabinet

President Jacob Zuma is considering appointing former AU Commission chairwoman Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to his Cabinet when she steps down from the continental body, easing her path to succeeding him as national leader, state officials said.

President Jacob Zuma is considering the appointment of AU Commission chairwoman Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to the Cabinet when she steps down from the continental body, easing her path to succeeding him as national leader, government officials said.

The move would bolster Dlamini-Zuma’s profile and her chances of replacing Zuma as leader of the ANC at its elective conference in December, according to two deputy ministers and an ANC official, who declined to be identified.

Zuma told Motsweding FM radio last week that the ANC was ready for a female leader and the job would not automatically go to his deputy, Cyril Ramaphosa, the other frontrunner for the top post.

Dlamini-Zuma will step down as AU Commission chairwoman on January 27.

Dlamini-Zuma rallied to Zuma’s defence after some ANC leaders called for his removal at a national executive committee meeting in November, following his implication in scandals.

“She has been out of the country, which means that she hasn’t played a very central role in South African politics,” Nic Borain, a political analyst who advises BNP Paribas Securities SA, said on Monday.

“Those running her campaign … would probably try and move her into a more central role in politics before the party’s elective conference. I don’t think they would risk putting her in a controversial position in government, for obvious reasons.”

While Dlamini-Zuma has not formally declared her candidacy, she has said she is willing to serve if asked to. She appeared to be in campaign mode on January 8, when she joined the ANC’s top six leaders during a walkabout at the rally commemorating the party’s 105th anniversary in Soweto.

“We are unaware of any plans of Nkosazana DlaminiZuma after her tenure of office at the AU,” her spokesman, Jacob Enoh Eben, said.

Zuma’s spokesman, Bongani Ngqulunga, was not immediately available for comment.

Dlamini-Zuma graduated as a doctor from the University of Bristol in 1978 and was health minister in the government of Nelson Mandela. She was named foreign affairs minister after former president Thabo Mbeki took office in 1999, a post she held for a decade. She was reassigned to the Department of Home Affairs and was lauded for overseeing a successful overhaul of the system of issuing documents and passports.

She was elected chairwoman of the AU Commission in July 2012 and in 2016, her tenure was extended by six months after AU members failed to agree on a successor.

“It would be massively beneficial for her campaign to have her go back into government because she could get a position that would push her into the limelight,” Susan Booysen, politics professor at the University of Witwatersrand’s School of Governance, said.