The second cabinet of Thabo Mbeki was the cabinet of the government of South Africa from 29 April 2004 until 24 September 2008. It was in office for the duration of Mbeki's second term in the South African Presidency, which lasted between the 2004 general election and Mbeki's resignation from office on 24 September 2008.
The cabinet comprised 28 ministers and was reshuffled twice, once in June 2005 and once in May 2006. In addition to members of Mbeki's African National Congress, it included one minister apiece from the New National Party and Azanian People's Organisation.
After the April 2004 general election, Thabo Mbeki was elected to his second and final term as President of South Africa. On 28 April 2004, he announced his new cabinet.[1] Although his political party, the African National Congress (ANC), had won a supermajority in the election, he invited two opposition parties – the New National Party (NNP) and the Azanian People's Organisation (AZAPO) – to fill a cabinet post apiece.[2][3] The Inkatha Freedom Party was not represented.[4]
About half of the appointments were unchanged from Mbeki's outgoing first-term cabinet, and only six new ministers were appointed.[1] The only major organisational change was Mbeki's decision to sever the Ministry of Arts and Culture from the Ministry of Science and Technology; until then they had been unified as the Ministry of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology. The 28-member cabinet included 12 women, an increase from Mbeki's first term.[1]
The most dramatic change in the cabinet's composition occurred on 14 June 2005, when Mbeki announced his decision to remove Jacob Zuma from the Deputy Presidency.[5] The sacking was the result of developments in ongoing corruption allegations against Zuma.[6] Mbeki appointed Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka to succeed Zuma as the Deputy President, and in turn appointed Lindiwe Hendricks to succeed Mlambo-Ngcuka as Minister of Minerals and Energy.[7]
The Minister of Public Works, Stella Sigcau, died less than a year later. In the aftermath of her death, on 22 May 2006, Mbeki announced his most extensive cabinet reshuffle, which resulted in the appointment to cabinet of Lulu Xingwana; it also affected three other ministers.[8][9]
Although deputy ministers are not members of the South African Cabinet, they are appointed by the president and assist cabinet ministers in the execution of their duties. At the same time as he announced his cabinet on 28 April 2004, Mbeki appointed 21 deputy ministers to serve below the cabinet.[3][10] For the first time, he appointed two Deputy Ministers of Foreign Affairs to serve together.[11] Two of the deputy ministers, Gert Oosthuizen of the ANC and Ntopile Kganyago of the opposition United Democratic Movement, were not sworn in until 10 May 2004.[12]
In his minor reshuffle of June 2005, Mbeki appointed two Deputy Ministers of Trade and Industry, Rob Davies and Elizabeth Thabethe; until then there had been only one deputy minister, Lindiwe Hendricks, who was promoted to cabinet in the reshuffle.[7]After this, Mbeki made two further changes to his corps of deputy ministers. First, on 25 January 2006, he announced that Cheryl Gillwald would resign as Deputy Minister of Correctional Services at the end of the month;[13] he appointed Loretta Jacobus to replace her.[14][15] Second, in a decision that sparked international controversy,[16][17] he fired Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge as Deputy Minister of Health on 8 August 2007.[18]
Mbeki did not appoint deputy ministers in the Ministries of Housing, Intelligence, Labour, Public Service and Administration, Public Enterprises, Transport, or Water Affairs and Forestry, nor did he appoint a deputy minister in the Presidency.[11] In addition, when Lulu Xingwana was promoted to the cabinet in his May 2006 reshuffle, he did not appoint anybody to replace her as Deputy Minister of Minerals and Energy.[9] Likewise, after Madlala-Routledge was dismissed, the position of Deputy Minister of Health remained vacant until the end of the cabinet's term.[19]