Thabo Mbeki

Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki (born June 18, 1942) is the President of the Republic of South Africa.

Early years

Born and raised in what is now the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, Mbeki is the son of Govan Mbeki (1910 - 2001), a stalwart of the African National Congress (ANC) and the South African Communist Party. His parents were both teachers and activists in a rural area of ANC strength, and Mbeki describes himself as "born into the struggle"; a portrait of Karl Marx sat on the family mantlepiece, and a portrait of Mohandas Gandhi was on the wall.

Govan Mbeki had come to the rural Eastern Cape as a political activist after earning two university degrees; he urged his family to make the ANC their family, and of his children, Thabo Mbeki is the one who most clearly followed that instruction, joining the party at age 14 and devoting his life to it thereafter. ^*^* After leaving the Eastern Cape, he lived in Johannesburg, working with Walter Sisulu.

Exile and Return

After the arrest and imprisonment of Sisulu, Mandela and his father, and facing a similar fate, Thabo Mbeki left South Africa as one of a number of young ANC militants sent abroad to continue their education and their anti-apartheid activities. He ultimately spent 28 years in exile, only returning to his homeland after the release of Nelson Mandela.

Mbeki spent some of his exile in the United Kingdom, earning a Master of Economics degree from the University of Sussex and then working in the ANC's London office; he also received military training in what was then the Soviet Union and lived at different times in Zambia, Botswana, Swaziland and Nigeria.

While Thabo Mbeki was in exile, his brother Jama Mbeki was murdered by agents of the Lesotho government in 1982. His son Kwanda–the product of a liaison in Mbeki's teenage years–was killed while trying to leave South Africa and join his father in exile. When Thabo Mbeki was reunited with his father, the elder Mbeki told a reporter, "You must remember that Thabo Mbeki is no longer my son. He is my comrade!" A news article pointed out that this was an expression of pride, explaining, "For Govan Mbeki, a son was a mere biological appendage; to be called a comrade, on the other hand, was the highest honour." ^*

Certainly, Thabo Mbeki devoted his life to the ANC, and as his years in exile continued, he rose to increasingly responsible roles. Mbeki was appointed head of the ANC's information department in 1984 and of its international department in 1989. While in these roles, he was close to Oliver Tambo, who served as a powerful mentor. In 1985, he was a member of a delegation that began meeting with representatives of the South African business community, and in 1989, he led the ANC delegation that conducted secret talks with the South African government. These talks led to the unbanning of the ANC and the release of political prisoners. He also participated in many of the other important discussions between the ANC and the government that eventually led to the democratization of South Africa. ^*

He became a deputy president of South Africa in May 1994 on the attainment of universal suffrage, and sole deputy-president in June 1996. He succeeded Nelson Mandela as ANC president in December 1997 and as president of the Republic in June 1999 (inaugurated on June 16); he was subsequently reelected for a second term in April 2004.

Role in African Politics

Mbeki has been a notably powerful figure in African politics, positioning South Africa as a regional powerbroker and also promoting the idea that African political conflicts should be solved by Africans. He headed the formation of both the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and the African Union (AU) and has played influential roles in brokering peace deals in Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo. He has also tried to popularise the concept of an African Renaissance. He sees African dependence on aid and foreign intervention as a major barrier to the continent being taken seriously in the world of economics and politics, and sees structures like NEPAD and the AU as part of a process in which Africa solves its own problems without relying on outside assistance.

Economic Policies

Some South African political analysts have seen a split within the ANC between the "prisoner" generation, ANC leaders like Mandela and others who studied political theory with each other while in prison; and the "exiles" like Mbeki, who studied economics in Western universities and helped the ANC-in-exile gain credibility with Western nations and corporations. Since Mbeki and his exile counterparts were responsible for representing the ANC to the West during the ANC's successful efforts to isolate the apartheid government internationally in the 1980s, they may have been more acutely conscious of the compromises that the ANC would have to make once it gained power.

Further, few in the ANC anticipated the economic shambles of the sanctions-hobbled and high-spending apartheid government; rather than redistributing a massive inheritance of white economic power, the ANC was forced into austerity measures and deficit reduction.

To many, Nelson Mandela represents the emotional warmth of the older brand of socialist politics of the ANC. But even during Mandela's presidency and certainly after it, Mbeki and his allies within government emphasized market-oriented approaches to South African economic policy. And even beyond the difficulties of inheriting the debts of apartheid, philosophically Mbeki appears to believe that economic growth is a precondition of economic redistribution. Additionally, he has emphasized avoidance of debt as a way of maintaining political and economic independence for the newly democratic state.

As the CIA Factbook summarizes it, "South African economic policy is fiscally conservative, but pragmatic, focusing on targeting inflation and liberalizing trade as means to increase job growth and household income." ^* Mbeki has emphasized that any policy that would redistribute wealth at the expense of economic growth and deficit reduction would ultimately put the nation into a downward spiral of market shrinkage and debt accumulation. He has pointed to Zimbabwe's post-liberation direction as an example of the dangers of an overly redistributive approach.

Like so many things in South Africa, this policy choice has difficult racial implications: the ANC must walk a difficult balance between pleasing the white-dominated business community—which might have taken its capital elsewhere under a more explicitly socialist regime—and keeping the ANC's promises to its core constituency of the impoverished black majority. Mbeki explains his policies in Africanist terms, and believes deeply in the idea of black empowerment. But he does so by tuning his policies to the constraints of market forces rather than attempting to overturn capitalism's organizing principles, as earlier generations of liberation politicians might have attempted to do.

This policy direction, embodied by the Growth, Employment And Redistribution (GEAR) program, has often been unpopular with leftist constituencies inside and outside of the ANC, including ANC-affiliated labor unions within the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the non-party-affiliated "social movements" which have protested against Mbeki's policies on AIDS, service delivery (e.g., the government's insistence on payment from the poor for utilities like electricity and water), and land redistribution.

The largest opposition party, the more free-market-oriented Democratic Alliance, has sometimes criticized affirmative action efforts or other policies oriented towards redressing apartheid's inequalities, as have smaller political groups. Nonetheless, the business community inside and outside of the country has retained faith in the ANC government to a degree that defies many pre-democracy predictions.

And although unemployment remains high and black poverty remains the rule rather than the exception, the economy overall has grown. Perhaps as a result, most South Africans remain loyal to the ANC and to Mbeki's government, and are willing to see economic transformation and redistribution of wealth as a long-term and gradual process.

Political Style

Mbeki has sometimes been characterized as remote and academic, although in his second campaign for Presidency in 2004, many observers described him as finally relaxing into a more traditional campaign mode, sometimes dancing at events and even kissing babies. Nonetheless, the fact that this was remarkable confirms the broader observation that Mbeki is a man who values the exercise of centralized policy over demonstrations of grassroots populism.

Mbeki's thinking can often be found in his weekly column in the ANC newsletter ANC Today where he often produces long discourses on a variety of topics. He sometimes uses his column to deliver pointed invectives against political opponents, and at other times uses it as a kind of professor of political theory, educating ANC cadres on the intellectual justifications for ANC policy. Although these columns are remarkable for their dense prose, they nonetheless often manage to make news. And although Mbeki does not generally make a point of befriending or courting reporters, his columns and news events have often yielded good results for his administration by ensuring that his message is a primary driving force of news coverage ^*

Mbeki and the Internet

Unlike many world leaders, Mbeki appears to be at ease with the Internet and willing to quote from it. For instance, in a column discussing Hurricane Katrina, he cited Wikipedia, quoted at length a discussion of Katrina's lessons on American inequality from the Native American publication Indian Country Today ([http://www.indiancountry.com), and then included excerpts from a David Brooks column in the New York Times in a discussion of why the events of Katrina illustrated the necessity for global development and redistribution of wealth.

His penchant for quoting diverse and sometimes obscure sources, both from the Internet and from a wide variety of books, makes his column an interesting parallel to political blogs although the ANC does not describe it in these terms. His views on AIDS (see below) were supported by Internet searching which led him to so-called "AIDS dissident" websites; in this case, Mbeki's use of the Internet was roundly criticized and even ridiculed by opponents. The view that the internet was the basis for his views on AIDS, however, is not likely the case; and as a widely-read man who frequently cites books unavailable to most except in scholarly libraries, he clearly uses the internet as only one of his sources of information.

Controversies: Zimbabwe

Due to South Africa's proximity, strong trade links, and similar struggle credentials, South Africa is in a unique, and possibly solitary, position to influence politics in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe's economic slide since 2000 has been a matter of increasing concern to Britain (as the former colonial power) and other donors to that country, and high-ranking diplomatic visits to South Africa have repeatedly attempted to persuade Mbeki to take a harder line with his erstwhile comrade, Robert Mugabe over takeovers of private farms by groups of Mugabe-allied war veterans, freedom of the press, and independence of the judiciary.

To the West's concern, Mbeki has never publicly criticised Mugabe's policies - preferring 'quiet diplomacy' rather than 'megaphone diplomacy', his term for the West's increasingly forthright condemnation of Mugabe's rule.

To quote Mbeki - The point really about all this from our perspective has been that the critical role we should play is to assist the Zimbabweans to find each other, really to agree among themselves about the political, economic, social, other solutions that their country needs. We could have stepped aside from that task and then shouted, and that would be the end of our contribution...They would shout back at us and that would be the end of the story. I'm actually the only head of government that I know anywhere in the world who has actually gone to Zimbabwe and spoken publicly very critically of the things that they are doing.

=2002 Presidential elections

= Mugabe faced a critical presidential election in 2002. The runup was shadowed by a difficult decision to suspend Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth. The full meeting of the Commonwealth had failed in a consensus to decide on the issue, and they tasked the previous, present (at the time), and future leaders of Commonwealth - (respectively President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, John Howard of Australia, and Mbeki of South Africa) to come to a consensus between them over the issue. On March 20, 2002 (10 days after the elections, that Mugabe won) Howard announced that they had agreed to suspend Zimbabwe for a year.

=2005 parliamentary elections

= In the face of recent passage of laws restricting public assembly and freedom of the media, muzzling campaigning by the MDC for the 2005 Zimbabwe parliamentary elections, President Mbeki was quoted as saying: I have no reason to think that anything will happen … that anybody in Zimbabwe will act in a way that will militate against the elections being free and fair. ... As far as I know, things like an independent electoral commission, access to the public media, the absence of violence and intimidation … those matters have been addressed.

Current deputy-president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka (Minerals and Energy Minister at that time) led the largest foreign observer mission to oversee the elections. That observer mission congratulated the people of Zimbabwe for holding a peaceful, credible and well-mannered election which reflects the will of the people.

The elections were denounced in the west, who accused Zanu-PF of using food to buy votes, and large discrepancies in the tallying of votes.

=Dialogue between Zanu-PF and MDC

= Mbeki has been attempting to restore dialogue between Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change in the face of denials from both parties. A fact-finding mission in 2004 by COSATU to Zimbabwe led to their widely-publicised deportation back to South Africa which reopened the debate, even within the ANC, as to whether Mbeki's policy of 'quiet diplomacy' is constructive.

On February 5 2006 Mbeki said in an interview with SABC television that Zimbabwe had missed a chance to resolve its political crisis in 2004 when secret talks to agree on a new constitution ended in failure. He claimed that he saw a copy of a new constitution signed by all parties. The job of promoting dialogue between the ruling party and the opposition was likely made more difficult by divisions within the MDC, splits to which the president alluded when he stated that the MDC were "sorting themselves out." Welshman Ncube said "We never gave Mbeki a draft constitution - unless it was ZANU PF which did that. Mbeki has to tell the world what he was really talking about." [http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=263613&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/" target="_blank" >^*

=Business response

= On January 10, 2006, businessman Warren Clewlow, who serves on the boards of four of the top 10 listed companies in SA, including Old Mutual, Sasol, Nedbank and Barloworld, said that government should stop its unsuccessful behind-the-scenes attempts to resolve the Zimbabwean crisis and start vociferously condemning what was happening in that country. Clewlow's sentiments, a clear indicator that the private sector is getting increasingly impatient with government's "quiet diplomacy" policy on Zimbabwe, were echoed by Business Unity SA (Busa), the umbrella body for all business organisations in the country. ^*

As the company's chairman, he said in Barlowold's latest annual report that SA's efforts to date were fruitless and that the only means for a solution was for SA "to lead from the front. Our role and responsibility is not just to promote discussion... Our aim must be to achieve meaningful and sustainable change."

Controversies: AIDS

Mbeki's views on the causes and treatment of AIDS have also been subject to criticism, most notably his defence (April 2000) of a small group of dissident scientists who claim that HIV is not the cause of the disease (See AIDS reappraisal). His government was applauded by AIDS activists for its successful legal defence against action brought by transnational pharmaceutical companies in April 2001 of a law that would allow cheaper locally-produced medicines. Since then, however, he and his administration have been repeatedly accused of failing to respond adequately to the epidemic. Current estimates suggest that 5.3 million South Africans have HIV, one of the largest HIV+ populations of any country in the world.

AIDS advocates, particularly the Treatment Action Campaign and its allies, specifically campaigned for a program to use anti-retroviral medicines to prevent HIV transmission from mother to child; and then for an overall national treatment program for AIDS that included antiretrovirals. Until 2003, South Africans with HIV who used the public sector health system could get treatment for opportunistic infections they suffered because of their weakened immune systems, but could not get antiretrovirals, designed to specifically target HIV.

In the current South African system, the Cabinet can override the President. Although its votes are private, it appeared to have done so in votes to declare as Cabinet policy that HIV is the cause of AIDS; and then, in August 2003, in a promise to formulate a national treatment plan that would include ARVs. However, the Health Ministry is still headed by Dr. Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who has served as health minister since June 1999, and has promoted nutritional approaches to AIDS while highlighting potential toxicities of antiretroviral drugs, leading critics to question whether the same leadership that opposed ARV treatment would effectively carry out the treatment plan. Indeed, implementation has been slow and activists still criticize Mbeki's AIDS policies.

It is difficult to determine what led Mbeki to hold unorthodox views of AIDS and the AIDS crisis. While serving as deputy President, AIDS was in his portfolio, and he customarily wore a red ribbon while promoting more conventional views of HIV and AIDS. He did preside over a controversial and brief embrace of a South African experimental drug called Virodene which later proved to be ineffective; the episode appeared to have increased his skepticism about the scientific consensus that quickly condemned the drug.

The largest shift in his views apparently came after he assumed the Presidency. He described AIDS as a "disease of poverty", arguing that political attention should be directed to poverty generally rather than AIDS specifically. Some speculate that the suspicion engendered by a life in exile and by the colonial domination and control of Africa led Mbeki to react against the idea of AIDS as another Western characterization of Africans as promiscuous and Africa as a continent of disease and hopelessness. ^* For example, speaking to a group of university students in 2001, he struck out against what he viewed as the racism underlying how many in the West characterized AIDS in Africa:

Convinced that we are but natural-born, promiscuous carriers of germs, unique in the world, they proclaim that our continent is doomed to an inevitable mortal end because of our unconquerable devotion to the sin of lust. ^*

Additionally, his views dovetailed with some broader themes in African politics. Many Africans find it suspicious that black Africans bear the largest share of the AIDS burden, and that the drugs to treat it are expensive and sold mainly by Western pharmaceutical companies. The history of malicious and manipulative health policies of the colonial and apartheid governments in Africa, including biological warfare programs set up by the apartheid state, also help to fuel views that the scientific discourse of AIDS might be a tool for European and American political, cultural or economic agendas.

Whatever Mbeki's views of AIDS are now, ANC rules and his own commitment to the idea of party discipline mean that he can not publicly criticize the current government policy that HIV causes AIDS and that antiretrovirals should be provided. His critics (and a few supposed supporters) sometimes assert that his personal views are not in accordance with this policy and still influence AIDS policy behind the scenes, a charge which his office regularly denies. (For example, ^*.)

Debate with Archbishop Tutu

In 2004 the Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, Desmond Tutu, criticized President Mbeki for surrounding himself by "yes-men", not doing enough to improve the position of the poor and for promoting economic policies that only benefited small black elites. Tutu also accused Mbeki and the ANC of suppressing debate. Mbeki responded that Tutu had never been an ANC member and defended the debates that took place within ANC branches and other forums. He also asserted his belief in the value of democratic discussion by quoting the Chinese slogan "let a hundred flowers bloom", referring to the brief Hundred Flowers Campaign within the Chinese Communist Party in 1956-57.

The ANC Today newsletter featured several analyses of the debate, written by Mbeki and by an anonymous ANC author ^*.

Mbeki, Zuma, and Succession

Mbeki was praised abroad and by some South Africans, but criticized by many ANC members, over his 2005 firing of the deputy president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, after Zuma was implicated in a corruption scandal. In October of 2005, a few Zuma supporters went so far as to burn t-shirts with Mbeki's picture on them at one protest, inspiring condemnation from the ANC leadership. In late 2005, Zuma faced new rape charges in addition to the corruption charges, dimming his personal political prospects. However, Zuma's supporters' past suggestions of an Mbeki-led political conspiracy against Zuma and the visible split between Zuma supporters and Mbeki's allies in the party further exposed splits in the ANC.

Mbeki has sometimes been accused of hoping for a constitutional change which would allow a third term in office a charge which he and other senior members of the ANC have always denied. In February 2006, Mbeki told the SABC that he and the ANC have no intention of changing the Constitution, and stated, "By the end of the 2009, I will have been in a senior position in government for 15 years. I think that's too long." [http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/&articleid=263355 However, he has no clear successor within the ANC. The battle for who will occupy this position is likely to be intense; indeed, the Zuma saga can be seen as merely an early round of a political drama which has already begun, even as Mbeki's second term is not even halfway over.

References

External links

Mbeki: ANC official page His party's collection of Mbeki documents, biography and portrait.
Google News on Mbeki Initiates news search for current items re: Mbeki]
"Thabo Mbeki - a man of two faces" "The Economist" magazine profiles Mbeki.
The Guardian Profile The Guardian (UK) profiles Mbeki.
A critical Zimbabwean view. Editorial comment from Zimbabwean website.
AFP Profile Thabo Mbeki as seen by Agence France-Presse.
"Today it feels good to be an African" - Thabo Mbeki, Cape Town, 8 May 1996
* No Shacks a project associated with Niall Mellon

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