Lindiwe’s league of Parliamentary super friends are ready to fire!*
(*nitpick at their official counterparts)
Late yesterday, the DA’s leader in Parliament, Lindiwe Mazibuko, released the names of her new DA shadow cabinet to the press, continuing the rather odd tradition of maintaining such a unit in South Africa’s rather one-sided political system. We’ve got the new cast of the DA Show in Parliament, after the jump.
Ms. Mazibuko reports that the main aim of her new Shadow Cabinet is to make the DA a more effective vehicle for opposition in Parliament, and that the selection attempts to optimise the diversity and “cross-generational” experience from within the DA fold.
It will be their responsibility to speak on behalf of the millions of South Africans who lack access to work opportunities, and to advance the DA’s vision for a growing and prosperous South Africa,
she said.
In other words: a little bit of every corner of the DA rainbow throwing shade at each and every step the President’s actual Cabinet makes. You’ll recall that that illustrious gang got re-shuffled (again) late last year.
And the Shadow Cabinet seats go to:
No, I don’t recognise more than five of those names either, and yes, those are all also actual government departments and cabinet clusters! Anyway, best of luck to Lindiwe’s super-diverse, cross-generational league of super friends.
A quick Spark Note: Shadow cabinets are something mostly found in Westminster Parliamentary systems, that is those based on the structure of the UK government, where typically two major parties alternate in the hot seat semi-regularly. The idea is that the members of a shadow cabinet are quite likely to assume the actual role, should a change of government occur. It allows an informal system of accountability to be installed within key government portfolios.
In our system then, the selection of shadow cabinets seems a little out of place, given we enjoy (technically) representation drawn proportionally from party lists, and to be blunt, it seems quite unlikely any of these people will ever actually be Ministers in government, given the massive grip the ANC wields on our electoral majority. Still, the ANC members of Parliament don’t seem to mind, and some even welcome the opportunity to work with the DA in such a structured manner.
[Source: TIMES Live, The Mail & Guardian, Business Day]
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