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Mbeki's troubled legacy

Published 30 September 2008

In his early years as president of South Africa Thabo Mbeki strode the globe like a colossus. But is his greatest contribution his resignation?

The decision to step down from the South African presidency is probably Thabo Mbeki’s greatest contribution to Africa and to South Africa.

In doing so he has set an example to others on the continent that will reverberate for years to come and may help to assuage what is otherwise a troubled legacy. He may also have helped democracy in South Africa.

In the years immediately after he took over from Nelson Mandela, Mbeki strode across the globe like a colossus. Hesitantly at first, South Africa became a peacemaker in Africa - first in Burundi, then the Democratic Republic of Congo followed by Cote d’Ivoire and of course Zimbabwe.

South Africa served as dealmaker to save the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty from collapse, strongly advocated and supported the establishment of the International Criminal Court and emerged as a country that served as a bridge between the West and the rest.

Together with members of the Outreach 5 (the others are Brazil, China, India and Mexico) a permanent dialogue was established between the club of old, rich G8 countries and the emerging new world order where African issues were discussed as part of global priorities. Through the New Partnership for Africa’s Development he mobilised support for Africa’s dilapidated infrastructure, its education and agriculture.

Through the African Peer Review Mechanism, APRM, his endeavours saw African leaders assume greater responsibility for the quality of governance that they delivered. At home, he presented endless lists of tasks and promises of future delivery to address the manifold challenges bequeathed by apartheid as his government presided over the longest sustained period of economic growth in South Africa’s history.

Today much of that is in tatters. Even the announcement of a tortuous negotiated settlement in Zimbabwe was completely overshadowed, at home and abroad, by the thunderous implication by Judge Nicholson that Mbeki and others in government had indeed been engaged in a political conspiracy against his former colleague and friend, Jacob Zuma.

Mbeki’s fate had already been sealed at the annual conference of the African National Congress in Pholokwane during December 2007 when his bid for a third term as president of the ANC ended in public humiliation. Ashen-faced, Mbeki was openly taunted by a victorious Zuma – a man he had appointed, and subsequently fired, as deputy president for alleged corruption.

Today it is Mbeki and not Zuma that is, figuratively speaking, in the dock as it becomes clear that the allegations about who benefitted from a major arms deal some years earlier, the source of Zuma’s legal troubles, comes steadily closer to Thabo Meki’s leadership.

The emperor had been found to have no clothes.

Many explanations have been offered for the disastrous conclusion of such a promising start. Much of it comes down to the failings of the man himself, a lonely, suspicious and conspiratorial figure, publically uncomfortable and testy.

Mbeki believed in his own intellectual superiority, whether on the causes of AIDS, the solutions to African problems or reform of global institutions. He surrounded himself with a cabinet that contained a number of outstanding minsters but the inclusion and retention of persons of blatant incompetence and arrogance in key fields such as health, communications, public enterprises and the like steadily gave way to consternation and sometimes disbelief amongst admirers and detractors alike.

Despite the benefit of sustained economic growth, education, health, electricity, infrastructure and information technology have been managed disastrously. Regionally, South Africa’s engagement in diplomacy has followed a consistent and ultimately tragic trajectory.

Instead of the pursuit and protection of human rights, democracy and justice, South Africa has consistently chosen solidarity above principle – most evident in the way in which Mbeki protected Robert Mugabe from African and international pressure.

But it is the challenges within the governing party that Mbeki has served for 52 years that must be the most hurtful – for the ANC is in crisis. A party that produced a number of Nobel peace laureates and had come to dominate South African politics has clearly lost its moral compass.

Its provincial and national meetings steadily degenerate into a naked struggle for power and patronage.

Today violence and intimidation is evident at every meeting and liberation stalwarts watch in disbelief as their party is high jacked by forces that few understand. Not a governance crisis, South Africa’s ruling party is facing the most severe crisis in its turbulent history since establishment in 1912/10.

Ironically, much of this is good news for South Africa and for democracy in Africa. Despite its laudable policies and impressive pedigree, the ANC is simply too strong and its patronage too seductive if South Africa is to prosper in the long term. Often termed a one-party democracy, South Africa, indeed much of Africa, need to shake off its post-liberation infatuation with politics and ideology to focus on the challenges presented by a modern, integrated and globalized world. Therefore the example that Mbeki set by resigning and not trying to cling to power, often the case elsewhere on the continent, may be his greatest contribution yet both to South Africa and the continent he cares about so deeply.

Jakkie Cilliers is the Executive Director, Institute for Security Studies, Africa

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3 comments from readers

ikotubo
02 October 2008 at 12:19

Mbeki highlighted one problem that Western media organizations in general have with African leadership. Because their expectations are ever so low (and who can blame them, given the manner in which most African rulers have behaved since decolonization?) , Mr Mbeki was held up as some sort of intellectual icon, an image the man himself clearly revelled in. But just look at the record:

Yes, the economy was reasonably well managed, but that was because it was not run by Mbeki's graft-infested ANC.

And what about poverty reduction? Yes, there was remarkable success in this regard, but only for the top cadre of the ANC, many of whom have suddenly become fabulously wealthy (though not through hard work of any kind), while thier fellow citizens wallow in misery.

And who doesn't know about Mbeki's infamous "intellectual" solution to HIV/AIDS (i.e. his obtuse unwillingness even to accept the basic science, thus consigning millions to a life of avoidable suffering and premature death)?

And need I mention his fanatical support for Mugabe's reign of tyranny?

Sharif
02 October 2008 at 15:45

Jakkee: your analysis is not off the mark, but history teaches us that the first generation of leaders after 'independence' turn out to be all indispensable autocrats. But considering that most of the leadership was either kept in jails or escaped to jungles of the neighboring countries, they have not don that bad a job. the economy has been well managed. The blacks are being entrusted more economic powers. Although the process is slow, but anything faster might have been called Idi Amin policy not liked by western press.

Let us hope that the path of democracy is not curtailed.

The other problem with reporting SA is that it is written by white South Africans, who are inclined to portray a negative picture. Can't you find black writers?

sweety
07 October 2008 at 02:22

Does anybody actually know how much the tax payer of this noble country paid to keep this colossus in briar pipes and Clan Smoking mixture, before he went to the USSR for training?