It’s Sunday morning on May 26 2019. After a gruesome election campaign, a tired-looking Cyril Ramaphosa, who has just been inaugurated as SA’s fifth post-apartheid president in a glitzy swearing-in ceremony, is having his first fight with leaders of the tripartite alliance that helped him get elected. It is over the composition of his cabinet. The patronage cake has become smaller after his alliance partners begrudgingly allowed him to cut the size of cabinet and deputy ministers. After confirming his deputy, David Mabuza, the other key portfolios are those of finance minister, deputy finance minister and the head of the so-called economic cluster, which has hitherto been dominated by racial minorities. With fewer jobs to fill, Ramaphosa will have no option but to pick his fights. For this columnist, the only fight worth taking on is the transformation of the political management of the economic cluster — namely the finance ministry and whatever replaces trade & industry, mineral re...

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