According to a statement from the Presidency, Willie Aucamp from the Democratic Alliance (DA) will replace John Steenhuisen as the Minister of Agriculture, and Aucamp’s DA colleague, David Maynier, will replace Aucamp as Minister of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment.

John Steenhuisen has been demoted to the position of Deputy Minister of Trade, Industry, and Competition.

President Ramaphosa also appointed the DA’s Alexandra Abrahams as Deputy Minister of Electricity and Energy, Jack Bloom as Deputy Minister of Water and Sanitation, and Yusuf Cassim as Deputy Minister of Higher Education.

To the vacant Ministry of Social Development, President Ramaphosa has appointed Dina Pule from the African National Congress (ANC).

The appointments will come as relief to the DA, who may finally put the catastrophic saga of John Steenhuisen at the agriculture ministry behind them. Steenhuisen botched the state’s response to the foot and mouth disease (FMD) pandemic, choosing to enforce a centrally directed disease protocol at odds with DA policy while hurling insults and abuse at farmers, who make up an important political constituency for the party.

That Ramaphosa agreed to the new appointments should also be read as a positive marker for the future of the Government of National Unity (GNU), given that the new DA leadership is more conditional about its participation in the GNU than was the case under Steenhuisen, while the ANC is open to a minority government. Flashpoints between the parties might therefore more easily trigger a breakup now than at any point over the past two years. Earlier this week The Common Sense put the odds of such a breakup at over 30%.

While DA insiders will see ridding the party both of Steenhuisen’s leadership and of his role as agriculture minister as a victory, a major test lies ahead for especially Willie Aucamp, who needs to reverse policy on FMD and win back the confidence of South Africa’s farmers. Doing that will be important for shoring up confidence broadly that the DA in government can perform better than the ANC.

That has been far from clear to date.

Beyond Steenhuisen, the DA’s Siviwe Gwarube has had a catastrophic run as eEducation Minister, blundering from one failure to another while doing vast damage to the education system in the process. Among other things, she has been responsible for championing the controversial Basic Education Laws Amendment Act, at odds with DA assurances to voters ahead of the 2024 election, proposing a radical leftist history curriculum, and most recently seeking to prevent merit from being used to secure pupil access to top state schools. The latter decision especially could wreck South Africa’s best-performing public schools.

Gwarube also refused to assist in helping the headmistress of Pretoria Girls High School, who was targeted by a politically motivated false racism campaign. DA insiders told The Common Sense that sensitivities around Gwarube were too great to see her canned and that an effort will instead be made to better supervise her at the ministry to curb further disasters.

DA Public Works Minister Dean Macpherson is thought to have performed well but without much prominence, Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber adequately, and Communications Minister Solly Malatsi mildly poorly in his role. Several DA deputy ministers have remained in complete obscurity, something the DA now hopes Steenhuisen will be able to replicate.

Jack Bloom, a DA Gauteng veteran and a very effective issue driver, is expected to perform strongly in his new role.

South Africa’s politics has in a sense been caught in a stalemate since the May 2024 election, with the ANC polling at around 40% and the DA at 25%. For the DA, breaking that deadlock will require demonstrating that it can govern at a national level better than the ANC can. If it fails that deadlock likely continues.