Howard Barrell
The success of South Africa’s efforts to recover its international standing of eight months ago could depend substantially on whether Republican George Bush or Democrat Al Gore grabs the knife- edge United States presidential election, which now turns on a few hundred votes in the state of Florida. Foreign affairs commentators, among them Colin Legum, veteran African journalist and editor of Africa Contemporary Record, gene- rally agreed this week that victory for the Democrat Gore would create a far friendlier environment for African and South African interests in Washington. Some suggested that the Thabo Mbeki government would do well to link up with those US legislators in both the Republican and Democratic parties who have taken a bipartisan approach since about 1997 in trying to help African states make it in the world economy. The fine balance of power between the two main parties in the US House of Representatives and the Senate, as well as in the race for the presidency, will discourage ambitious political projects from the new president. Instead, economic imperatives are likely to predominate.
Pursuing an economic agenda in tune with the bipartisan position adopted by US legislators might, therefore, be the appropriate focus of South Africa’s approach to Washington.
Some commentators believed this bipartisan economic consensus among legislators on the way forward for Africa made a Bush or Gore victory fairly irrelevant to the flavour of US policy on Africa and South Africa.
John Stremlau, professor of international relations at the University of the Witwaters-rand, said this bipartisanship was most evident in the African Growth and Opportunity Act. This recently passed US law seeks to facilitate Africa’s integration into the US and world economy mainly through enhanced trade. It was a joint Republican-Democratic project initiated, unusually, by Republican legislators.
In the past Democrats have tended to be more interested in Africa – partly because many of the Democratic Party’s supporters are African-Americans and liberal Jews. Stremlau said the bipartisanship achieved in recent years is likely to continue following Tuesday’s election because of the absence of a decisive majority for either party in the Congress. Some other observers interviewed by the Mail & Guardian this week believe, however, that Mbeki will have to work hard to repair the immense damage he has done his own and South Africa’s image over the past eight months through his stance on HIV/Aids.
Without this repair work, the country might battle to take full advantage of the opportunities this bipartisanship offers. The same is likely to be the case if Mbeki is to cultivate a receptive ear for his agenda in the US political establishment, and to persuade the US to give Africa and the rest of the highly indebted developing world a further economic hand-up. Peter Vale, foreign policy specialist and acting vice-rector (Academic Affairs) at the University of the Western Cape, warned against South Africa counting on personal relationships struck by Mbeki with Gore in recent years and with Bush during a special stopover at the governor’s mansion in Austin, Texas, earlier this year. ”Friendship counts for nothing; it’s national interest that is important,” Vale said.
Vale’s predictions were less sanguine than Stremlau’s. He thought a Republican presidency would adopt a radically different approach from the perspective presented by President Bill Clinton over the past eight years. He foresaw an end to the notion that all democracies could be ”complementary” in international relations. He also predicted a rejection of the doctrine of pivotal states put forward by Paul Kennedy of Yale University, which has been a pillar of Clinton’s foreign policy. This doctrine seeks to identify and bolster friendly regional powers – of which South Africa has been considered one – which can partner the US. A Republican presidency, said Vale, was more likely to take one or more of three views. A political economy approach would seek to maintain a strong dollar, a weak euro and, with it, a declining rand. South Africa would become poorer and, gradually, ”drop off the US’s radar screen”. Alternatively, a Republican presidency’s view might be coloured entirely by strategic considerations. This perspective identified HIV/Aids as a strategic threat to the US and, because of the syndrome’s prevalence in South and southern Africa, the US would erect ”a wall” around the region.
A third possible Republican approach would be to view South Africa as an incipient African ”basket case”. ”The latter two approaches are not too far apart,” Vale said.