Professor Kader Asmal, once the driving force behind the Irish anti-apartheid movement, has lost his job as education minister in a major reshuffle of the South African cabinet yesterday by President Thabo Mbeki, writes Séamus Martin in Johannesburg.
In a statement to the South African Press Association, Mr Mbeki said that Mr Asmal was not appointed to a cabinet post following his request to retire.
Mr Asmal was the most senior ANC member to be omitted from the cabinet. In the party's list for the general election he was placed fourth behind only Mr Mbeki himself, deputy president Mr Jacob Zuma and Foreign Minister Ms Nkosisana Dlamini-Zuma.
His decision to seek retirement appears to have been taken at a very late stage and possibly under some pressure. It was widely reported that Mr Asmal had offered to stay in the cabinet for another five years and in a recent conversation with this correspondent gave every indication that he wished to stay in the cabinet.
There had been consistent speculation that Mr Asmal would be replaced and some newspapers had called for his resignation following allegations by opponents of the ANC that successful results in the Matric, the South African equivalent of the Leaving Certificate, had been subject to official exaggeration.
Mr Asmal was appointed Minister for Water Affairs in the first democratic government of Mr Nelson Mandela and was transferred to education in Mr Mbeki's cabinet in 1999. He is a former senior member of the staff of Trinity College, Dublin.
Also sacked from the new cabinet was former Home Affairs minister and leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, who had been involved in a bitter campaign against Mr Mbeki's African National Congress (ANC) in the province of KwaZulu-Natal.
The ANC gained control of the province from the IFP for the first time following the general election of April 14th. While other IFP members were given minor ministerial roles, it was apparently a key decision on Mr Mbeki's part to dispense with Mr Buthelezi's services despite the danger that this might engender bitterness and even violence among traditional Zulus in the region.
Other notable decisions by Mr Mbeki were the retention of Health Minister Ms Manto Tshabala-Msimang and the appointment of Mr Marthinus Van Schalkwyk of the New National Party as Minister for Environmental Affairs and Tourism. Ms Tshabalala-Msimang had been ridiculed by opposition politicians because of her advice to HIV-positive people to eat beetroot and garlic. South Africa has more people with HIV-AIDS than any other country.