Choosing an ambassador, like selecting a soccer coach, should never be treated like a popularity contest.
In football, most reasonable fans have come to accept that hiring a coach and his technical team is the exclusive preserve of club owners and their management teams or, in the case of national teams, the national associations.
Otherwise, if the criteria were based on who is most loved by the fans, Viktor Bondarenko would still be in charge at Orlando Pirates and Dan “Dance” Malesela would have by now added Kaizer Chiefs to the long list of teams he has coached.
But by now, we have long come to appreciate that certain technical skills and attributes, not immediately visible to an untrained eye, need to be possessed by a prospective coach and that those can be best detected and judged by those with the skills to do so.
Therefore, such previously unfancied names as Steve Barker, Jose Riveiro and Miguel Cardoso lead the most successful teams in the Premier Soccer League.
Since the recent expulsion of Ebrahim Rasool as SA’s ambassador to the US, a debate has raged as to who should succeed him. Given our country’s deteriorating relationship with the US – SA’s second-largest trading partner – it is not surprising that the question of who the next envoy will be should preoccupy so much of the public discourse.
While some seem to be of the mistaken view that to appease the Donald Trump administration – which wrongfully accuses SA of blatantly discriminating against white Afrikaners – Pretoria needs to appoint a white, Afrikaans-speaking male as the next ambassador, others think the country’s saving grace can only come by choosing an envoy with no historical links to the ANC.
Since the recent expulsion of Ebrahim Rasool as SA’s ambassador to the US, a debate has raged as to who should succeed him
So, in the ANC and circles sympathetic to the party, the names of the likes of deputy justice minister Andries Nel and other party activists of Afrikaans heritage are being mentioned as possible replacements for Rasool.
Among those who hold the view that the new, conservative administration in Washington will have no time for anyone with links to the Palestinian-cause-supporting-ANC, be they Afrikaans-speaking or not, the belief is that only “independent” candidates – or those with a history in the opposition –stand a chance to be heard in Washington.
It is in this context that former DA leader Helen Zille recently suggested that her predecessor in the party – and SA’s former ambassador to Argentina, Tony Leon – should be considered for the role.
Leon has subsequently stated that he is not interested in the job.
As President Cyril Ramaphosa recently pointed out, it is his sole prerogative, as the head of state, to appoint the next ambassador. That we now have a multiparty government, the Government of National Unity, does not mean that this constitutional power and function is suddenly withdrawn from him and handed over to an amorphous collective.
Indeed, the president may decide to consult widely before appointing the next ambassador, but the final decision is still his. Therefore, it would be helpful for the parties in the GNU, including the ANC and the DA, to afford him the space to apply his mind without the process being polluted by too much politicking.
The debate has also been premature because there is no point in rushing to argue about names without first defining what SA wants the next ambassador to achieve.
The geopolitical environment has radically changed since Ramaphosa last announced that Rasool would be returning to Washington for his second stint.
As Rasool’s expulsion demonstrates, this changed environment has specifically resulted in our fraught relations with the US rapidly taking a turn for the worse – something that could not have been anticipated by even the most pessimistic of foreign policy pundits.
The appointment of a new ambassador, therefore, requires careful consideration of what SA wants and can achieve from its interaction with the Trump administration over the next four years.
Though it is not ideal to go for too long without an ambassador in Washington, time is still on Ramaphosa’s side, given that it may take a year or more for Trump’s nominee as US ambassador to SA, Leo Brent Bozell III, to be confirmed by the US Senate.
In the intervening period, Ramaphosa and his team should use the time to figure out how to play the diplomatic game in a changed environment of US protectionism and nationalistic sentiment.
Only once that is figured out, can the president start considering who – regardless of party political affiliation, gender, race or language group – is best suited to lead the country’s diplomatic efforts in Washington.
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