President Thabo Mbeki is “not a dictator”, but there is no way to hide the dissent within his government over leadership issues, official opposition Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon said on Wednesday.
Speaking in the Budget vote of the Presidency — soon after Mbeki’s opening
speech — Leon said he has read the latest edition of Bua Komanisi!, the bulletin of the South African Communist Party (SACP) central committee, which refers to the “rupture between leading elements” of the ruling African National Congress and the SACP.
This document also describes the “anti-Mbeki pro Zuma mobilisation” — referring to axed deputy president Jacob Zuma, who remains deputy leader of the ANC. It also describes the new black economic empowerment elite as “excessively compradorist and parasitic”.
It also refers to Mbeki’s technocratic state as having tended to “marginalise Parliament”, Leon noted.
Leon argued that it bears the stamp of the SACP central committee, including
Mbeki’s Cabinet colleagues — Minister of Intelligence Ronnie Kasrils, Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi and Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry Rob Davies.
Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula, “of course, is the SACP chairperson. Perhaps we should borrow his own words and tell him: he can whinge about the president, or he can leave the ANC government. But he cannot serve two masters.”
This was a reference to Nqakula — whom Leon said deserves to be fired — urging those griping about crime to leave the country.
“As you discover that old allies have become new enemies,” Leon told the president, “perhaps you will have cause to reconsider your attitude towards the opposition.”
He said the opposition supports the macroeconomic policies, the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa and its 6% growth target. While Mbeki has built around him a powerful Presidency, “your government tells the United Nations that we have the world’s largest HIV/Aids treatment programme”.
“Yet hundreds of thousands of South Africans continue to die while the
Health Department refuses to stop the sale of so-called cures.”
Mbeki’s government has also passed the Zimbabwe buck to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Leon said.
Presidency ‘has institutional weakness’
Also speaking in the Budget vote of the Presidency, Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi said it is unfortunate that the South African president is head of state, head of the government and head of his political party.
Buthelezi said that since the beginning of South Africa’s constitutional negotiations, he has called for the separation of head of state and head of the government.
“The problematic nature of this combination is gravely compounded by him being also the executive leader of a political party, which requires him to deal with the never-predictable and never-containable but always present crises of politics.
“This consideration bears no criticism of the incumbent, but under present circumstances highlights the institutional weaknesses of the Presidency.
“Because of this situation, in assessing the Presidency, we are forced to make it our business to deal with the political upheaval engulfing the incumbent,” said Buthelezi, referring to the race for power. Mbeki is scheduled to step down as his party’s leader next year.
Buthelezi said: “It is not just an African National Congress affair, it is also our problem. Can — under the present circumstances — the Presidency really fulfil its institutional mission of unifying and leading the country?”
Noting that in June last year the president announced that he was relieving the deputy president, then Jacob Zuma, of his duties and functions, Buthelezi said: “On that occasion I stated that the president had no choice but to act in that manner after what was stated about our then deputy president in the judgement condemning [Zuma’s financial adviser] Schabir Shaik.
“Any institution is more important than its incumbent, and protecting the dignity of the institution may require scarifying the reputation of the incumbent.
“The president had to make a hard call and made the right one, but as an institution, the Presidency was unavoidably damaged and scarred in the process.” — I-Net Bridge