Analyst says US ambassador-designate Brent Bozell aims to extract concessions

THE incoming United States Ambassador to South Africa, Leo Brent Bozell III, is expected to seek significant concessions from Pretoria as he begins his term during a marked degeneration of relations between the two nations.

- JONISAYI MAROMO

This is the view of Ofentse Donald Davhie, a political risk and foreign policy analyst at the Centre for Risk Analysis, as expressed in an interview with broadcaster Newzroom Afrika yesterday.

"He does come with an ideological stance. He comes from a long lineage of a conservative family. His father was a conservative activist. His one uncle was a conservative writer who founded a very famous magazine focused on the right-wing political agenda. His other uncle, as well, served as a conservative senator from New York, which is rare, and also served under the Reagan administration," said Davhie.

"So this, coupled with the Trump administration, he is here to extract concessions, he is not here to make any new friends. It is going to be a clash, of course, ideologically between the conservative Trump administration and the left-leaning ANC-run coalition government.