Ofentse Donald Davhie’s recent piece, “SA’s foreign service is becoming a retreat for failed ministers”, raises an interesting debate. But it makes a fundamental error: it confuses the need to reform the state at home with the need to protect the state abroad.
His argument is that because some ministers failed domestically, they must, therefore, fail internationally. That is a false equivalence. Foreign policy is not an extension of domestic administration, but of priorities. It is a different craft altogether – a craft of trust, discretion, political judgement and proximity to power.
I write this not as an ANC apologist, but as a career diplomat who has served this country for over two decades – from the trenches of South-South Cooperation, the High Commission in Abuja and to our Consulate in Lagos.
There is a very good reason why presidents appoint former ministers as ambassadors, in addition to career diplomats.
The Constitution is clear. Section 84(2)(i) vests the prerogative to appoint ambassadors in the President. Why? Because foreign policy is the external expression of domestic sovereignty. It can not be outsourced to officials alone. It must be a shared responsibility, with a combination of skills, both political and diplomatic.
Political weight
An ambassador does not just deliver démarches. An ambassador should be able to look a head of state in the eye and say, “This is where my president stands.” That requires political weight. It requires someone who has sat in Cabinet, who understands the trade-offs, who has carried the burden of executive responsibility and who will not betray the principles of our foreign policy for convenience.
In a world where, as Davhie himself correctly notes, the Trump administration and indeed most major powers run on personal standing, not protocol, a career official with a perfect knowledge of the Vienna Convention may be more moderate and isolated than a former minister who can pick up the phone and call the Presidency.
Davhie goes further to suggest that 48 of our 77 heads of Mission are political appointees. He says this as if it is a scandal. In the United States, about 30-40% of ambassadors are political. In France, it is common practice. In Nigeria, Kenya, Brazil – everywhere, political appointments are a tool of statecraft.
Why does South Africa need them more?
Because we are not a neutral State. We have a principled, often contested, foreign policy. We stand for non-alignment, for dialogue over regime change, for Palestinian self-determination, for reform of global financial institutions, for the African Agenda. To defend those positions in Paris, Washington, DC, London or Tel Aviv – capitals where the pressure to abandon them is immense – you need someone who is politically trusted and astute.
You need someone who will not freelance. A career diplomat can be brilliant, but a former minister understands that they serve a political mandate, not their personal career, without suggesting that career diplomats do. No, they don’t.
Roelf Meyer
The example Davhie himself gives proves my point: Ambassador Roelf Meyer in Washington, DC. He was not a career diplomat. He was a political heavyweight. He is effective precisely because of that political stature.
Ambassador Ayanda Dlodlo in Paris? Yes, she carried the State Security portfolio during a difficult period. But she also served as Minister of Public Service and Administration, Minister of Communications, and spent four years at the World Bank. That is not a thin CV. That is a combination of political judgement, public sector reform experience and multilateral exposure. To reduce her to “July 2021” is lazy analysis.
No serious diplomat argues that we do not need career diplomats. We do. They are the backbone of the Department of International Relations and Cooperation, and I am one of them. We carry a burden of retaining institutional memory, the drafters, the negotiators, and the consuls who work through the night when our citizens are in distress.
But to suggest we must choose between career and political appointments is to misunderstand modern diplomacy. Both career diplomats and political appointees are critical in advancing our foreign policy agenda.
The best foreign services in the world have a mix of both. A career diplomat brings continuity. A political appointee brings access. One knows the file. The other knows the President’s mind.
Dangerous naivety
The vacancy in Canberra is not proof of a conspiracy to keep a post warm for a politician. It is proof of budgetary and administrative challenges that affect both streams – including the very real cost of deploying to expensive capitals. To turn every vacancy into a story of ANC patronage is sensationalism, not analysis.
Finally, let us be honest about the politics of this attack. Since 2024, South Africa has been governed by a government of national unity. The President, who appoints ambassadors, now does so in consultation with a much broader political spectrum. If the argument is that only career diplomats are legitimate, then we are arguing for a depoliticised foreign policy in the most politicised era in human history. That is dangerous naivety.
The world is not becoming more technocratic. It is becoming more political. Wars in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan. Tariff wars, AI governance and the battle for critical minerals. In that world, South Africa can not afford to send only career diplomats as trusted envoys – political appointees are equally critical.
Political ambassadors are not a pension fund. They are a strategic reserve. They carry the scars, the wisdom and the networks of having governed. When used correctly – as they are being used now – they do not undermine our global standing. They protect it the same way as career diplomats.
We must debate the quality of individual appointments, by all means. But let us not delegitimise a practice that every serious country uses and that a country with South Africa’s principled foreign policy desperately needs. DM
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