Cyril Ramaphosa, the President of South Africa, issued a statement on Wednesday in which he said that women will make up 50% of his Cabinet for the first time in history.
“For the first time in the history of our country, half of all the ministers are women,’’ said Ramaphosa according to CNN.
The place for the minister of public works was reserved for Patricia de Lille, who was the mayor of Cape Town at one point and a leader of the opposition Good Party.
According to CNN, Ramaphosa stated that the new gender balance at the same time as saying he would downsize the Cabinet from 36 to 28 ministers in an effort to downscale the bloated government, as his African National Congress won the general election that was held earlier this month.
Among the other women he has announced for his Cabinet are Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Thoko Didiza, who have both previously been ministers, The Hill informs.
The appointment of women in the cabinet has been the target of critics both good and bad, as some people said that gender equality is a good goal, while others said that the appointments are just a recycling of old leaders, as Xolani Dube who is a political analyst from the Xubera Institute of Research and Development based in Durban, South Africa was talking with CNN on this and said:
“Many of the women the president announced have been there for many decades. We need to ask ourselves what kind of paradigm shift are we looking for in this country. We need to introduce young women who have a different outlook on how South Afrika is supposed to be governed in this particular age.’’
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