Try again, the beloved country

SOUTH AFRICA has had three finance ministers in less than a week. The first, Nhlanhla Nene, a respected technocrat, was “redeployed” after he objected to wild spending plans. One clash involved the chairman of South African Airways, Dudu Myeni, who wanted the state carrier to buy aeroplanes via an unnamed middleman. Local press speculated that Ms Myeni was one of the president’s mistresses. Jacob Zuma issued a public denial. He replaced Mr Nene with a nonentity: a backbench MP and former small-town mayor called David van Rooyen. The rand promptly plummeted 9%. Over the weekend Mr Zuma dropped Mr van Rooyen and replaced him with Pravin Gordhan, a safe pair of hands who has done the job before. Problem solved? Not by a long shot.