In the run-in to the ANC’s December conference at Polokwane Finance Minister Trevor Manuel kept an unusually low profile, staying out of the firing line as others, such as Mosiuoa Lekota, drew heavy flak.
In the immediate aftermath of the conference too, he largely held his peace, although those who know him make it clear that he was angered by his slide in the national executive committee list from first to 67th, behind people without a fraction of his credentials and clout.
At the time, government officials who support Manuel’s approach defended his uncharacteristic quiescence in the face of increasingly confident rhetoric from the communist and trade union left. ”Now is not the time for individual heroics,” one said in April this year, ”he needs to serve the country.”
One version of this account had it that Manuel would be prepared to serve in a Zuma Cabinet, perhaps even as deputy president or as a type of super-economics minister, and that he believed he had to tread carefully in order to keep that possibility alive.
The idea of a Manuel who would stay on as a steady hand at the tiller was lent further credence in July, when he and a treasury team met with a Cosatu delegation led by Zwelinzima Vavi in what was punted at the time as a successful bridge-building exercise.
It is now clear, however, that the period of quiet diplomacy is over.
February’s budget, with its projected fiscal surplus and minimal support for the left’s cherished industrial policy programmes, was a clear sign that Manuel would not be taking direction from the new leadership at Luthuli House and October’s medium-term budget policy was if anything a stronger statement of principle:
”I am aware that our policy decisions have sometimes been controversial. But if our economic policies were designed for their populist appeal, if we tried to finance everything at once, for everybody, then short-term gains would quickly give way to long-term misery,” he told Parliament.
As one person close to Manuel put it this week: ”The message is to the top leadership, and to the president of the ANC [Jacob Zuma]: if you want me, these are the policies I will implement. Take it or leave it.”
Either the ANC’s top structures realise how badly they need him, and accept that the price is continued fiscal and monetary prudence, along with an insistence on improved government performance, or they learn to live without him.
”If you said, ‘it’s my way or the highway’ you would not be wrong,” a person who knows Manuel well said, speculating that he would stay on until next year’s election.
What is much less clear is whether, on leaving government, Manuel would also leave the ANC, and perhaps join the Congress of the People. Most believe his loyalty to the ANC is too deep, and suggest he finds the Cope platform too reactive, but it is clear he would give the breakaway movement a massive electoral boost if he joined.
Old rumours about a potential job at the International Monetary Fund have been renewed, although there are serious hurdles to be overcome — not least the politically fraught process of senior appointments at the international financial institutions, and whether his life partner, Maria Ramos, would want to live in Washington — although she too is an obvious candidate for a post at the fund or the World Bank.
It is hard to see Manuel at any level below president of the IMF — a job that by tradition goes to a European. The incumbent, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has just survived a scandal involving an affair with an employee, but in the event that pressure for reform builds further to expand the voice of developing countries, there must be an outside chance. Institutional reform of this nature could either be accelerated by the global financial crisis as the fund reasserts its importance, or set back, as it sticks to its knitting.
Manuel has categorically denied that he is leaving his post any time soon.
”It is absolute rubbish that I am going to resign this afternoon. I don’t know where journalists get this stuff and what they smoke,” he is reported to have said earlier this week after Beeld newspaper ran an article suggesting that Manuel would soon flee his hot seat in government.
”If I lose my cool please understand why. It is irresponsible. It moves markets.”
To be fair the minister finds himself in a veritable pressure cooker of Âcircumstances. The ANC under the new guard — who have promised much to so many — and with enthusiastic shoves from the SACP and Cosatu, want to re-emphasise South Africa’s economic policy. Simultaneously the global economy has imploded around us.
To be reminded of just how influential Manuel’s position is, we need only look back to the day he was reported to have resigned, along with other Cabinet ministers, after Thabo Mbeki was ousted.
The JSE plummeted as investors became terrified that the man so heavily associated with South Africa’s economic stability would go.
In this light the question of whether there may be some conflict between the ANC leadership and Luthuli House is perhaps more important than ever.
The alliance partners have often criticised treasury’s hold over the nation’s purse strings, viewing it as too conservative in a country where so many people have so little.
Treasury meanwhile has maintained that prudent macroeconomic policy is the best way to promote growth, which will in turn create jobs for South Africa’s poor and unemployed.
Manuel’s open letter to Irvin Jim, general secretary of Numsa, in the Sunday Times last weekend emphasises that Manuel is loyal to the ANC, still holds its ideals high, but that its policies, particularly those outlined at Polokwane, are policies of the ANC, not its alliance members.
Manuel says to Jim that ”— if in your understanding there is no difference between the policies of the ANC and those of the SACP, such a view is not supported by the decisions of the 52nd national conference.”
Similarly the speech made by Manuel in Parliament this week repeatedly defends his policies, which have served the country relatively well to date.
Yet the choice of Nhlanhla Nene as his deputy came as a surprise to many observers — especially since Enoch Godongwana, former minister of finance for the Eastern Cape, was running favourite to deputise.
Many parliamentarians welcome Nene, however, because he is steadfast, solid, has a good work ethic and is the antithesis of the dynamic Manuel.
Parliament has even taken greater steps to separate itself from the influence of treasury with the introduction of the Financial Management of Parliament Bill, which Nene incidentally has been instrumental in developing.
It remains to be seen, however, just how far the ANC will push Manuel or how far he can push it.
