The appointment of Mac Maharaj as President Jacob Zuma’s new spokesperson this week caught many in the government and the ANC by surprise.
Sources in the presidency said Zuma appointed the former transport minister because he needed an experienced and established political communicator.
Government and ANC officials sympathetic to Maharaj’s predecessor Zizi Kodwa, however, told the M&G they believe he was seen by some in Zuma’s inner-circle as too close to ANC Youth League President Julius Malema, and Sport Minister Fikile Mbalula.
Kodwa was the youth league spokesperson when Mbalula was its president before Malema took over three years ago.
Zuma’s confidants apparently believe that Malema and Mbalula are at the forefront of a campaign to topple him as ANC president at the party’s elective conference in Mangaung next year.
Although the youth league has yet to announce its candidates for top ANC positions, it is an open secret that it wants Kgalema Motlanthe to replace Zuma and Mbalula to replace ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe.
Arguably, Kodwa has performed well as Zuma’s acting spokesperson but some people in the presidency believe he did not do enough to defend the president when the youth league and Cosatu attacked him publicly.
A government and party official said Kodwa apparently confided to people close to him several months ago that he was being sidelined on major decisions in the presidency.
“He indicated as early as March that there were moves to change him. But he got advice from senior people in the ANC to remain in the presidency until he was pushed out.
“He was just there doing the job without any recognition. No one valued his contribution. Zuma did not value the good job he was doing.
“He was told to move away from the youth league grouping a while ago. They also told him to publicly ridicule the youth league.
“When he did not do this, people started frustrating him,” a senior government official close to Kodwa said.
But Kodwa said that he was hired as an adviser in the first place and had played the role of spokesperson only in an acting capacity after Vincent Magwenya left.
“Those rumours you heard are unfounded. I don’t think the president is obsessed with 2012,” he said.
Kodwa said Maharaj was a “seasoned communicator in the first place and a grounded comrade who knew the ins and outs of government and would bring maturity and dignity to the office”.
He said the challenge was to get everyone to assist him.
“Our role is to help him succeed in that role because no one can work alone in that position.”
Kodwa said that the president knew that he was from the youth league and that Zuma would never prescribe who he should associate with. “People are creating a storm out of a teacup,” he said.
Other staff in the presidency told the M&G that another reason for bringing in Maharaj was because he understood diplomacy and would communicate the president’s increasing role in the international arena well. As Zuma’s special envoy, Maharaj has been involved in both Zuma’s Libyan and Zimbabwean mediation processes.