Elections 2024

Elections 2024 Guide

Advertise your job ad

Jobs

Coordinator - Marketing and Communications Johannesburg
Printing Business Manager Polokwane
Copywriter Johannesburg
Copywriter Cape Town
Account Manager, Producer and Field Producer Parkhurst
Production Manager Johannesburg

More jobs Submit a job Open account

Zuma picks Big Mac as his voice

By Stephen Grootes: @StephenGrootes

7 Jul 2011

President Jacob Zuma has announced a big shakeup in the premier spin-doctoring role in the country. From now on, the old-generation stalwart Mac Maharaj will be the voice, the public visage of the president. What an interesting choice.

Our politics has a way of surprising. It's a place where things you could not predict happen often. The announcement of the new presidential spokesman is one of such surprises.

Mac Maharaj is the most senior politician to be appointed to a spokesperson's post in our recent political history. We now have a former cabinet minister, the person who actually smuggled "A Long Walk to Freedom" out of Robben Island, after transcribing it from Madiba's words as a civil servant. We are talking about a real heavy hitter here, a person in charge of Operation Vula in the late '80s and who played a massive role in the negotiations that led to 1994.

More on him in a moment, but first, a comment on the job itself, and the person who used to hold it. Ziza Kodwa is his name, and a more personable man you will not find. He is close to Zuma and really shot to prominence as his ANC spokesman during the 2009 election campaign. Before that, he was the spokesman for the ANC Youth League, and thus is very much in the Fikile Mbalula camp. Yes, that makes him close to Julius Malema too.

Continue reading the full story on www.thedailymaverick.co.za.

Source: Daily Maverick

Daily Maverick is a unique blend of news, information, analysis and opinion delivered from our newsrooms in Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa. There are many ways to describe exactly what we do (and for the price of a cup of coffee we’re capable of talking your ears off about it), but the best way to understand the end result is to experience it. Every part of Daily Maverick is free-to-air and no payment is required, although free registration is required for a small subset of functions and pages.

Daily Maverick is run by an independently owned, private company with no affiliation to any other media group (or political party or religious organisation.) Follow Daily Maverick on Twitter at @dailymaverick.

Go to: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/

Stephen Grootes

About Stephen Grootes: @StephenGrootes

Stephen Grootes is political reporter for Eyewitness News (www.ewn.co.za) and contributing editor for Business Day (www.businessday.co.za). He used to write for The Daily Maverick (www.thedailymaverick.co.za). Follow him on Twitter at @StephenGrootes.