The spin doctors of the left had a very hard time convincing anyone, but their line at least was clear. Trevor Manuel is a jolly nice man, well loved by his colleagues in the national executive committee (NEC), a good egg, whose stock as master of his financial ministry increases along with the rand, at about the same rate as his golf handicap decreases.
Perhaps the two trends are, in some mysterious way, related. After all, even the president has taken up golf, and surely not just so he can play with George W Bush as the original rumour had it; more likely to keep up with the senior members of his own government.
The reason for this spinning was that it was necessary to try to mask the more obvious alternative on everyone’s lips, that the rank and file activists of the African National Congress had decided to express their overall approval of the government’s macroeconomic strategy by electing Manuel to the top of the NEC electoral ladder. That is certainly my view; it is impossible to subtract Manuel from his ministry and its policies, however good a bloke he may be. His personal victory represented a resounding victory for his macroeconomic policy management.
Manuel in turn was genuinely moved. With the benefit of my binoculars, and despite the mobbing jubilation of the Western Cape delegates among whom he was sitting in readiness for the reading of the results, I could see the tears in his eyes. It must have been a terribly nice feeling; a reward for all those long days and nights toiling away with his director general of finance to make sense of the Budget.
It took Manuel more than a minute or two to extract himself from the enthusiastic embraces of his provincial colleagues and a little while longer before he was able to make his way to his seat back on the stage — the first newly elected member of the NEC. Thabo Mbeki was getting twitchy and so when the cheers for the second elected, Cyril Ramaphosa, rang out around the vast hall — no doubt rather too loudly for Mbeki’s comfort — the president marched to the podium and called a halt. In absolutely typical Mbeki fashion his penchant for control and constraint came to the fore and he ordered that there would be no more applause after each name but only once all 60 names had been announced.
It seems an awfully long time ago already, but given its importance to the ANC and Mbeki, not to mention its scarce supply — once every five years — the legacy of ANC’s national conference in December in Stellenbosch deserves a little more scrutiny. Especially in terms of this question: given that by the time the next one comes around in 2007 Mbeki will be about to enter his last two years in power and the die will not only be cast but well and truly rolled, how will it effect the Mbeki administration’s final years? Or, indeed, will it?
Next Friday Mbeki will deliver his State of the Nation speech at the opening of Parliament. The build-up is strangely quiet. Attention is very much elsewhere: on Iraq and the impending war; or on the World Cup. Or for those of us capable of such nimble emotional gymnastics, on both.
Politically, after the friction, frisson and fraternity — I think in roughly that order — of Stellenbosch, there is a tremendous lull after the storm. Mbeki’s brand of moderate politics for middle South Africa has prevailed, decisively, and his position in politics is more secure surely than it has ever been.
A lifetime’s devotion to the task of crushing the left is all but complete: whatever their wishful thinking, of policy gains here and there, the short point is that the real left — I refuse to be drawn into using the term ”ultra left” — is overwhelmed. Mbeki’s election as president of South Africa for a second term from 2004 to 2009 is assured, and the only remaining question is what, having taken complete control of the centre ground of South African politics, he will do with the power he has amassed.
Next Friday is potentially the starting point. Mbeki could use the occasion to tell us how he sees the next seven years unfolding. What does he really want to achieve? Where will his real priorities lie? What imprint on South African history does he want to make? I suspect he will not want to reveal his cards so soon, with so many competing calls upon our collective attention.
But back to the ANC national conference for a moment: it will be interesting to hear to what extent Mbeki links his governmental programme for the year with the recommendations of his own party. This is where party and electorate can collide. The electorate chooses a government and gives it some sort of mandate. But, the party is still important: it has its own agenda, and will urge it upon those colleagues who are handling the tillers of state power.
Take the conference declaration. Putting aside all the fluff about being a ”disciplined force of the left”, it says that the conference ”reaffirmed the perspective that the central challenge remains the eradication of poverty and inequality”. This is the starting point and on this the ANC government’s track record is poor.
As Sampie Terreblanche’s new book describes, the democratic capitalism of the post-1994 period has had little or no impact on the poor: ”The political and legal empowerment of blacks since 1994 has not automatically translated into socio-economic empowerment … eight years after the political transition, changes in the distribution of socio-economic power have mainly benefited the approximately 10-million blacks in the two bourgeois classes, and has had hardly any effect on the 22,5-million blacks in the middle and lower classes.”
Mbeki needs, therefore, to articulate a vision for job creation and wealth distribution that will make a difference to the poor. At the least, we should expect some clarity on the direction of welfare policy; if not the Basic Income Grant then what exactly?
The second main element in the conference declaration referred to the ”HIV/Aids epidemic” — something that Mbeki declined to do in his two speeches. Yes, it got two little mentions in the long political report by Mbeki on the opening day of the conference, but the fact remains that here is a president of a country facing what his own party is honest enough to admit is an ”epidemic” and he is unwilling or unable to speak about it. It remains the great chasm in this leadership. Will he ever develop the courage to speak about it again? Perhaps he will dare to next Friday, though once again, don’t hold your breath.
Finally, the world. Foreign policy, the old adage goes, begins at home. In Mbeki’s case, one might reverse it. Domestic policy begins abroad. His own legacy, and that of his own economy, is now arguably interwoven with that of his grand scheme of African Union. Zimbabwe, however much he may regret it, is in the mix. Given that his policy is of quiet legitimisation — the belief that Robert Mugabe will only go if you make him feel comfortable — rather than the loud halo diplomacy of the British government, he is unlikely to say much, if anything, about Zimbabwe in his speech. Look, however, for clues, about how transitions are measured and about how the model of African multilateralism that Mbeki advances through the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) and the Peer Review Mechanism might apply, if at all. This is a crucial year for Nepad; Mbeki can ill-afford any mistakes.
So there it is: jobs, HIV/Aids and African governance. For once, Mbeki should do away with the clutter and detail of many of his speeches — Mbeki the manager — and instead offer some clear, simple messages accompanied by a straightforward vision of the future. Squeezed between the sabre-rattling of the Americans and the gentle clamour of the World Cup, Mbeki must deliver a simple statement of leadership. Having accumulated power, South Africa’s president must tell us how he intends to use it in the coming seven years.