/ 18 June 2004

Work, work, work for the birthday boy

President Thabo Mbeki will spend his 62nd birthday on ''work, work, work'', his spokesperson Bheki Khumalo said on Friday. ''The president doesn't believe in festivities and big bashes. It embarrasses him,'' said Khumalo. However, his colleagues in the National Assembly decided that his big day could not go unmarked and in a motion the political parties wished him a happy birthday.

President Thabo Mbeki will spend his 62nd birthday on ”work, work, work”, his spokesperson Bheki Khumalo said on Friday.

”The president doesn’t believe in festivities and big bashes. It embarrasses him,” said Khumalo.

However, his colleagues in the National Assembly decided that his big day could not go unmarked and in a motion the political parties wished him a happy birthday.

”The president was born in 1942. So was the deputy president [Jacob Zuma], Minister Pallo Jordan and myself. So I regard 1942 as a vintage year. We would like to wish the president a long life,” said Democratic Alliance chief whip Douglas Gibson.

Pan Africanist Congress MP Themba Godi clapped his hands and sang ”Happy Birthday, president” with one or two MPs joining in softly.

”The IFP expresses its best wishes and happy returns to the president,” Inkatha Freedom Party MP Suzanne Vos said.

”We hope he goes and plays golf today so he is rested for the big job ahead,” that Azanian People’s Organisation’s Jeremia Nefolovhodwe added.

Mbeki will spend the morning at his Cape Town home, his weekly letter from the president will be posted on the African National Congress website at 1pm, and he will later lead the South African delegation to the seventh meeting of the International Investment Council, Khumalo said.

During the council’s evening dinner function, a birthday cake will be brought in for him and guests will sing ”Happy Birthday” and present him with a gift.

He probably will not have time to pop into the local home industry shop to buy a cake for the office.

Born in Idutywa in the Eastern Cape, Mbeki’s birthday places him under the star sign of Gemini, which, according to Astrology-online website makes him ”Adaptable and versatile, communicative and witty, intellectual and eloquent, youthful and lively.”

”Cunning and inquisitive” and ”nervous and tense” are listed as the darker traits of Geminians who are said to like talking, multiple projects and reading.

The Star’s William Smith predicts a year of ”spasmodic successes” and advises that people born on June 18 gear themselves for plenty of hard work with ”worthy triumphs carved out of difficult odds”.

ThisDay advises Mbeki — a horse in the Chinese horoscope — that taking a hard line will arouse greater opposition but ”diplomatic compromise should win the day”.

Although the horse feels he can ”do his work with his eyes closed”, the sinoscope asks, ”But are you ready for the next challenge?” – Sapa