JOHANNESBURG: South Africa's rand leapt on Monday after President Jacob Zuma named Pravin Gordhan as finance minister, seeking to draw a line under days of market turmoil that have triggered calls for him to stand down as leader.
Zuma appointed the widely respected Gordhan late on Sunday, his second stint in the job, in a dramatic U-turn that gave Africa's most industrialised economy its third finance minister in less than a week.
Fallout from the sacking last Wednesday of Nhlanhla Nene has cast fresh doubt on the political future and eminence of 73 year-old Zuma within the ruling African National Congress party.
The president's initial appointment to the finance ministry of David van Rooyen, a relatively unknown lawmaker and Zuma loyalist, triggered a wave of criticism and a market sell-off that saw the rand plunge to a new all-time low on Friday.
Gordhan, who last held the post from 2009 to 2014, will hold a news conference at 1 p.m. local time (1100 GMT) on Monday, a statement from the Treasury said.
South Africa is gearing up for local elections next year in which the ANC is expected to face stiff competition from the opposition Democratic Alliance in urban areas, including the economic hub of Johannesburg. The countryside remains an ANC stronghold.
Even some supporters of the ANC, Nelson Mandela's erstwhile liberation movement that has ruled since the end of apartheid in 1994, expressed dismay about Wednesday's appointment of a Zuma loyalist to the crucial post. They also described his latest appointment as a sign Zuma was losing control.
"It may not be his death knell, but it's certainly the turning of the tide," said a former senior ANC legislator and anti-apartheid activist Ben Turok.
The currency fell nearly 9 percent last week following the removal of Nene, a civil service veteran who was keen to rein in government spending.
"The markets will welcome back Gordhan to National Treasury," Rand Merchant Bank's currency strategist John Cairns said.
"He is a known entity, is his own man and did well when in the post previously. But it is certainly unreasonable to expect all of last week's losses to be reversed -- a huge amount of uncertainty has been created in the past few days."
By 0854 GMT, the rand had strengthened by 5.07 percent against the dollar to 15.0850, recouping some losses suffered last week. The rand had traded at 14.4320 per dollar before Nene was fired.
Yields on government bonds recovered sharply in early trade, with the benchmark paper due in 2026 down 107 basis points at 9.31 percent.
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