Current Defence Minister and ruling African National Congress (ANC) national chairperson Mosiuoa Lekota could be a suitable candidate to become president after President Thabo Mbeki, says black consciousness leader Xolela Mangcu.
Addressing students at the University of Cape Town business school on Friday, he said that a rift had developed between Mbeki and the white community on the one hand and between Mbeki and black intellectuals on the other.
Lekota, once from the black consciousness camp and a leader in the mass democratic movement politics of the 1980s, could be “the guy that the Afrikaners like” as well as being able to balance the need for racial reconciliation and transformation of the country.
Black intellectuals to whom Mbeki had turned for political succour after the white community elected Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Tony Leon as their representative, had themselves fallen under the president’s ire.
This was largely as a result of their critical stance about HIV/Aids policies articulated by the president and the governing party’s stance on Zimbabwe. Mbeki had responded by accusing so-called intellectuals of having aspirations similar “to a foreign minority”.
He had also described them as “foot-lickers of the white system”.
The president had engaged in similar attacks on white liberals.
An increasingly lonely Mbeki had turned inwards towards his own political party and had carried out a centralisation process, with the end result being that the leadership even appointed premiers and mayors of cities. At the same time the party had implemented a Western liberal model of economics which had led to rising unemployment.
He argued that a worthy project of transformation — including land reform — had been derailed by a president whose being was wrapped up in his desire to be viewed as an intellectual. At the same time the likely successor, Deputy President Jacob Zuma, appeared to “be in trouble” and the likelihood of him becoming president had dimmed.
That left the number three in the party — Lekota, he noted. Lekota could re-invigorate the ruling party using the support of the internal wing — rather than the exile wing — of the party.
He noted that Lekota had been elected national chairperson over the late Safety and Security Minister Steve Tshwete, who at the time had the president’s backing.
A decision on the next leader of the ruling ANC is to be taken in two years time — in 2007 — at the next national conference of the party. Mbeki’s constitutional two-year term comes to an end in 2009.
Arguing that Mbeki was politically lonely — even though he had taken his party from around 62% of popular support when President Nelson Mandela led the party — to nearly 70% today — Mangcu said the support was based largely on patronage, including the provision of social grants. At the same time the party had seen a drop in membership.
The former director of the Steve Biko Foundation said the high levels of support for the ruling party may well be a “reflection of bad performance” — and articulation of the electorate’s “increased desperation” at not having jobs — and perhaps it could get 80% of the vote in the next election amid government promises to create jobs.
Mangcu said the late Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere had reflected on his mistakes as leader and said that it was the ability to say one “doesn’t know” was a key ingredient of leadership. Mangcu, without referring to Mbeki directly, asked: “Can you imagine an intellectual admitting that?” – I-Net Bridge