Perhaps the best way to describe Thabo
Mbeki’s term of office to date is as a “back-room presidency”. With the tacit assistance of an invisible official opposition it is threatening to make a nonsense of our democracy.
The signs have been there for some time
where President Mbeki is concerned. The centralisation of political power. The appointment of African National Congress apparatchiks to key positions in the state and parastatal bureaucracies. The non- existent media profile. The disdain for Parliament reflected in his failure to make himself regularly answerable to the National Assembly. The disregard for the spirit of the Constitution inherent in his offhand decision to move the presidency to Pretoria.
Over recent weeks the tempo seems, if
anything, to have accelerated. There was his refusal to meet the Dalai Lama, arguably the second most important spiritual leader in the world today after the pope, on the grounds that he was “too busy”.
It was a busyness which had him offhandedly reappointing the old and discredited board of the state broadcaster into the new century, on the grounds that he did not have time to “apply his mind” to the confirmation of their successors.
The misuse of power was most strikingly apparent in what we can only assume was his decision to squirrel the infamous dictator and torturer, Mengistu Haile Mariam, out of the country in the face of pressure to force his extradition back to Ethiopia to face genocide charges. It was a move that qualifies for description as a betrayal of South Africa’s civil rights heritage, as well as of our international responsibilities.
But even more significant for the
governance of South Africa are his government’s assaults on the third branch of government, the judiciary. These range from ridiculous attempts to “discipline” the Bench with punitive fines to the bizarre intervention on the part of the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Planning, Penuell Meduna, to extend the term of office of the Judge President of the Cape, Edwin “Sharky” King, and hold back his chosen successor, Judge John Hlope.
Whether the president is directly
responsible for these developments is open to question, but at least he must be held accountable for creating the atmosphere in which such attacks can be made and in doing nothing to counter them. The justice minister’s arrogant assumption that he can meddle with high judicial office clearly indicates an informed belief that he would have his president’s backing.
The frame of mind engendered by the style of the “back-room presidency” is also reflected in the bumbling attempts at legislation that have been streaming from the justice minister’s legal advisers recently. These include draft laws seeming to share the perspective that any piece of gobbledygook dressed up in legal “language” will suffice as long as it empowers the state that the authors (consistent in their ignorance) mistake for the executive.
For those who share these apprehensions as to where this “back-room presidency” might be leading us there is, however, some hope that it is about to be checked by the long-anticipated resumption by the judiciary of its mantle of authority. A renewed confidence on the bench seemed to be sounded in the carefuly chosen words of the Chief Justice, Ismael Mahomed, last week in reprimanding the minister over the King/Hlope matter.
It was to be seen in the quick and efficient dousing of Meduna’s ministry’s efforts to discipline wayward judges that gave rise to the warning to the executive from the new Judge President of the Transvaal, Bernard Ngoepe, not to mount “the tiger”. Hopefully it was a tiger that has now enjoyed the heady taste of independence and will tolerate nothing less in the future.
Of course there are those who would say
that these are extraordinary times and that firm leadership is demanded of the executive to protect our democracy from the threats to its existence represented by the pandemics of unemployment, poverty and crime.
But we and, we have no doubt, the judiciary have no difficulty in appreciating the threats posed by these riderless horses from a past apocalypse. It has to be recognised, however, that the manner in which we set about dealing with them will determine the shape of the society that will endure long after such present perils have passed us by.
WE WOULD POINT OUT ONCE AGAIN TO THE PRESIDENT THAT, IN LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS OF A NEW NATION, IT IS ONLY TOO EASY TO LEAVE FOOTPRINTS IN THE WET CONCRETE.