SA’s foreign service is becoming a retreat for failed ministers

Political appointments aren't inherently bad, but using South Africa’s diplomatic corps as a pension fund for ousted politicians undermines our global standing when expertise matters most.

Ofentse Donald Davhie is a research associate for the Centre for Risk Analysis (CRA) with a focus on political risk and foreign policy.

On 5 October, Ayanda Dlodlo presented her credentials to Emmanuel Macron as South Africa’s ambassador to France, taking over the post from the late Nathi Mthethwa, a former police and arts minister who held the post until his death there last year . The lazy and incorrect response is to label this under “another political appointment” and move on.

There is nothing wrong with a political ambassador. Every serious state appoints them – the Constitution gives the President the prerogative, and sometimes a political figure is the better choice than a career official.

The Trump administration runs on personal standing and proximity to power far more than on diplomatic protocol, making a political heavyweight far more influential than a traditional technocrat. South Africa’s ambassadorial deployment of figures like Roelf Meyer – a key negotiator who helped broker South Africa’s democratic transition – showcases an appointment chosen for stature rather than lifted from a retirement queue. As a white Afrikaner, his presence also pushes back against genocide allegations levelled at South Africa. That is a political appointment doing exactly what a political appointment is for.

The central issue is not a choice between career officials and political appointees, but the qualifications and rationale behind the selection. Here the governing party has a problem of its own making. Of South Africa’s 77 serving heads of mission, 48 are political appointees against 28 career diplomats and one secondment, meaning 62% of South Africa's ambassadors are political appointees.

A further 13 posts are reserved for political appointment, and the minister of international relations and cooperation told Parliament in August that there is no cap of any kind on the practice. Most of these appointees come from the ANC’s roster of former ministers and senior officials.

The problem is that the party keeps sending abroad the people who ran its departments at home, and the record of those departments does not recommend them for anything.

Dlodlo’s most senior post was state security, the portfolio that presided over the intelligence failures around the July 2021 unrest, a charge she has contested but one that sits on the record. She did also spend four years at the World Bank, which is a genuine credential. So the point is not that she will fail, it’s that the selection logic is upside down. South Africa is taking the people whose domestic delivery the country found wanting and handing them the harder, more exposed work of representing it abroad.

The ANC fell below half the national vote for the first time in 2024 and had to enter a coalition to continue governing. That outcome was, among other things, a verdict on how these cadres ran the state, through the loadshedding years, the collapsing municipalities and the hollowed-out state firms.