South Africa

Ministers' resignation send waves through markets

Article published on the 2008-09-23 Latest update 2008-09-24 08:04 TU

Protestors from various political parties demonstrate in support of President Thabo Mbeki outside Parliament in Cape Town
(Photo: Reuters)

The eleven ministers and three junior ministers resigned Tuesday after Thabo Mbeki stepped down Sunday as South Africa's president. The eleven ministers included the Minister for Finance, Trevor Manuel, whose departure unnerved the country's financial market with the national currency, the Rand, falling against the dollar.

“This is really coming at a bad time for South Africa,” said Dawie Roodt, chief economist for the Efficient Group, told RFI.

Cautioning against overreaction, Roodt said that the resignations alone won’t have a significant impact on the South African markets.

“I won’t call it a blow, but I would certainly call it an added uncertainty,” he said.

“It would have been much easier if they would have waited another seven months when the president’s term would have expired in any event, and the transition then would have been much sooner,” Roodt told RFI from Pretoria.

Other ministers to follow Mbeki out of government included Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and Sydney Mufamadi. They played important roles in South Africa's Aids policies and the Zimbabwe negotiations respectively.

ANC Treasurer Mathews Phosa had said on Sunday that the party did not want to see Mbeki supporters leave the government. "We want stability and we really want them to stay", he said.

South Africa's opposition described the resignation of the government ministers as "an unmitigated disaster". The Chief Whip of the Inkatha Freedom Party, Koos van der Mathe, said Mbeki had stepped down "in indecent haste". 

Aziz Pahad, deputy foreign affairs minister, was one of the ministers to resign. He explained that this wasn't chaos or instability, but simply a desire not impose the old governmental structure on the new president.

“I want the new president to… indicate his own direction,” Pahad told RFI, adding that "the policies of the movement will not change fundamentally.”

Saying that the falling markets were overreacting, Pahad said that, “the market should be a bit more patient and allow the new president to take charge of this situation.”

RFI's Southern Africa Reporter, Nick Champeaux said the move "was seen as a move of defiance towards Jacob Zuma "since Zuma had said he wanted the ministers to stay on". He explained that the apparent departure of the Finance Minister had been brought into question, "Now we understand that Manuel is actually happy to serve the next administration. He's had to organise a press conference from New York...to reassure investors." 

Further confusion came this afternoon after comments from the chairman of the ANC. Champeaux explained that "The ANC chairman said this afternoon also that out of the fourteen ministers that have resigned, only six said that they do not wish to work for the future administration."