CONSTRAINTS ON POWER
Constitution prevents president from horsing around with the Treasury
It is good news that ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe announced on January 30 2017 that the appointment as finance minister of Brian Molefe, formerly CEO of Eskom and a frequenter of a certain Saxonwold shebeen, is not imminent. We must be grateful for small mercies and hopeful that sanity will prevail. According to legend, the Roman emperor Caligula decided to appoint his horse as proconsul during a particularly trying time. A peek at the history.com website is revealing. It seems that "many scholars reject the notion that Caligula terrorised Rome with his unbridled madness, arguing that his fellow law makers would likely have whisked him out of power for such conduct. So while Caligula might have had an unusual fondness for his horse, it’s unlikely the emperor went so far as to appoint the stallion." But what if Caligula actually did plot to create Rome’s first equine official? According to historian Aloys Winterling, author of Caligula: A Biography, insanity is not the only l...
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