What can we expect from President Thabo Mbeki next Friday?
Wandering down Government Avenue two years ago I bumped into a man who works for the president. It was early morning, the day of the opening of Parliament. Could I get a sneak preview of the state of the
nation speech, I inquired? Without a word, the adviser dangled an unmarked “stiffy” disc before me and passed, with a smile, on his way.
The speech was on its final journey. From the ministerial offices of Alec Erwin or Trevor Manuel, in the grimly appointed 120 Plein Street block, to the elegance of Tuynhuys, the Office of the President.
Perhaps this year e-mail will transport the eight or nine drafts between the main contributors: Erwin, Manuel, pivotal African National Congress intellectual Joel Netshitenze, presidential political adviser Titus Mafolo and the increasingly influential presidential economics adviser, Welshman Nkhulu.
Perhaps not. But what is certain is that, as always, Mbeki will do the final drafting himself. Late next Thursday or early Friday, the president will settle over his word processor and type fast — a skill acquired during his speech-writing days.
Much fun has been made of a president who pores over the Web. Unfairly: surely a head of the government who actually uses it is more likely to understand information communication technology. Mbeki is impatient with Cabinet colleagues who don’t share his abilities with the keyboard and mouse.
Last year’s speech was the best of Mbeki’s three as president, and arguably one of his best ever. From its methodical measuring of macroeconomic stability to its honest assessment of the bleak terrain of socio-economic inequality in South Africa, it succeeded in conveying the notion that here was a president in command of both his government and events. Yet in the 12 months since, his government has continued to emit the opposite impression. So, once again, Mbeki is compelled to right a battered ship.
Although hardly a rip-roaringly successful year, 2001 was, at least, not as bad as Mbeki’s Millennial annus horribilus. The political pressure may not be quite as acute but, with the quint-annual national ANC conference looming in December, Mbeki’s year involves fights on all fronts.
On the Eastern Front, so to speak, is the alliance. That is nothing new: dealing with the left has been a life’s work for Mbeki. But the drip-drip of the ideological war of attrition has sapped energy and confidence from what is often a creatively tense relationship with the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the South African Communist Party.
By last spring alliance relations had acquainted themselves with rock bottom. Though still unlikely, a split to the left became a possibility for the first time. In one of the most important documents of the old year, Netshitenze — tellingly co-authored with serious members of the left — argued in the October “Briefing Notes on the Alliance” that not only were the “economic fundamentals in place” but the macroeconomic stability achieved by the government’s growth, employment and redistribution policy (Gear) would provide a launch-pad for a more effective assault on the structural flaws in South African society and economy.
In last year’s state of the nation address, Mbeki identified a fundamental problem: “The reality remains that our rate of growth is still too low as are the aggregate savings and investment rates.” The mini-package of micro-strategy mixed with a modest dose of industrial policy announced by Mbeki last February has proved inadequate to the task.
Now, in the first important political development of the new year, we learn that a new growth strategy has been negotiated within the alliance, suggesting that a far greater emphasis will be placed on the micro-economy, on domestic investment and growth, and even on Keynesian-style public interventions.
So will Mbeki announce next Friday the effective end of the government’s controversial Gear policy? Does he now accept that the international macroeconomic heterodoxies are shifting? And how far will his ideology allow him to go? Which begs a further question: what exactly is his ideology? Whether this century turns out to be his “African Century” or not, what is extraordinary is that the man who is undoubtedly the continent’s most influential leader is on one level so unknown.
The quest for the Big Idea that might satiate Mbeki’s sense of his role in history goes on. For on the Northern Front looms Zimbabwe. The “contagion” effects of market and other sentiment threaten, however irrational it may be, confidence in South Africa.
Hence, core South African interests collude with the Mbeki vision of African renaissance. Its latest — and apparently final — articulation, the New Partnership for African Development (Nepad) cites good governance as a foundation stone. Mugabe’s unobliging refusal to respond to Mbeki’s pressure, whether too subtly imposed or not, undermines Nepad’s nascent promise of African solutions to African problems.
Mbeki’s private frustration with Mugabe is matched only by his frustration at the limited viable options available. Now that Mugabe has declined to be manoeuvred a la Buthelezi into a chessboard corner, it seems that doing little, except distancing himself with growing clarity, is all that is left for Mbeki.
And so, finally, and sadly inevitably, to HIV/Aids. Whereas with Zimbabwe Mbeki deserves understanding, even sympathy, on this he is the sole architect of his own misfortune. Nuance as a policy has failed not because of Mbeki; with HIV/Aids, it is the nuance that has caused the failure. If he speaks on the subject, he makes things worse. If he is silent, he is also rightly criticised.
Like a mute, the president is unable to speak publicly on the subject that, with jobs and human security, dominates the domestic political agenda. And, also beyond: wherever one travels, the same question is thrown: “Your president — isn’t he the one with the funny views about HIV? Why does he?”
Not knowing the truth is as anguishing as seeing the damage it does to the credibility of South Africa and its democratic transition.
That is the true extent of the problem, which now runs deep within his party caucus, where there is profound discontent at the confusion his position has caused on the ground.
As an issue, it thus threatens his political strength within his own party, with as yet unknown knock-on consequences for the way he will be forced to operate as the December conference approaches. While simultaneously it contaminates his reputation internationally.
And to what end? Towards what strategic objective? Quite simply: why?
Like so many Third Way leaders around the globe, Mbeki now bestrides and dominates the whole of the centre ground of South African politics, surrounded by a complex four-way set of alliances and coalitions that now includes the New National Party as well as the Inkatha Freedom Party, Cosatu and the SACP.
Holding this broad coalition together will in itself provide a profound test of the much-vaunted political acuity of Mbeki. Yet, beyond these more mundane considerations, a lingering question hangs heavy and surely nags at Mbeki’s mind as he taps away deep in the night: to what effect does he occupy power and for what great purpose?
Pulled in every direction by a range of excruciatingly daunting challenges, and past the halfway mark of his presidency, Mbeki’s time is running out. He needs now to provide the answer we all crave to know.
Archive: Previous columns by Richard Calland