Pity the African National Congress activist who goes to the door of Epainette Mbeki — deep in the rural Eastern Cape — looking for an easy vote for the organisation.
“I am too critical of the government. I stand on the side of the people,” she explains. Despite being the mother of the president and a successful local businesswoman, she chooses to live in an area with no running water, no toilets, dirt roads and no nearby hospital.
Whether it is problems with the water, toilets or roads, she says, poor people living in rural areas do not know who is accountable for delivering services. “This [municipal] administration does not meet us halfway. We don’t know who to go to. It is a problem with communication,” she explains.
For the past two years Mbeki has been trying to secure a site on the national road for the Khanyise [Enlightenment] project — a development initiative for local women who sew traditional clothes and make jewellery. But “the red tape has tied us down”, she complains. Mbeki scoffs at the idea that she has “connections”. “No, no, that is not the way to do things,” she says.
Despite her criticisms of the government, she has no sympathy for people who blame it and do nothing to help themselves. “They have two hands, feet and land. They must be committed,” she insists.
She also scolds communities for not being more proactive. “What breaks my heart is the lethargy — and especially now that there has been a change in government, the public has the foolish idea that the government must provide everything for us.”
The past decade has seen many improvements in her village. “During these 10 years, the government has done marvellous things for us, but we are not meeting the government [halfway].” She says the village has electricity now, which has made a great difference in the life of the community. “It works both ways. The people need to work but the government has to give them the skills.”
For Mbeki, the problem is that it is not sustainable for the government to keep on providing money and food parcels. “In this area everything hinges on water.” Without rain the villagers cannot grow crops, make a living, be clean, eat or drink. “We have a windmill here that is not working, yet we are waiting for the water affairs department to fix pipes.”
She was speaking as President Thabo Mbeki was securing ANC support in the Eastern Cape, historically a stronghold of the organisation. Although the president did not have time to visit his mother during his last visit to the province, they spoke on the telephone. They hope to meet when he is next in the Eastern Cape.
When the president visits her, Mbeki says her son does not arrive with an entourage of bodyguards. “When he comes here, he is just a Xhosa boy,” she explains.
At 88, Mbeki still thrives as a matriarch of her community. “You have no idea what problems are brought to me here — like a husband having difficulty with his wife, or [someone] fighting with a neighbour. Some come to me saying they want the president to give them a social grant.”
Mbeki says that she is proud of her sons. “As a black woman, life was always [hard], before and after the struggle. The way I brought up my children, I trained them to be independent from the word go. They should not be tied to my apron. So all along they have been fighting their own way. When Thabo became president, it was just one of those things.”
She says that as a leader he has to find the middle ground. “Somebody asked him about these anti-retroviral pills for Aids. He says those pills are not like aspirin — you don’t just give them to anybody. And there is a huge cry that the government is withholding [them]. We don’t understand [this], so he has to try the middle way, which is very difficult.”
Mbeki was one of the first women members of the South African Communist Party. Leaving her lounge —where a picture of her late husband, Govan, hangs on the wall and a mug with the president’s face sits in her cabinet alongside a plaque of the Congress of South African Trade Unions — she heads to her shed for another community meeting.
“Give me a political meeting any time, but not a religious one. I am hopeless with religion — but in politics, I will harass you,” she says.