South Africa’s official opposition Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon has extended a hand to President Thabo Mbeki to assist him in dealing with ”major problems and crises” facing the country.
But Leon has warned — in his Friday internet column, SA Today — that the president had in the past refused to accept that his party could oppose the government politically while at the same time cooperate in resolving such problems.
He recalled that some years ago he had offered to appear ”on the same platform” with Mbeki to back a campaign for the eradication of sexually transmitted diseases whose prevalence does so much to help spread HIV/Aids.
The president had responded and said that the opposition leader may be correct in arguing that to do so would have a large public impact, but the question would be asked at home and abroad why the president was not able to discharge his responsibilities without the leader of the opposition holding his hand.
Given the president’s recent shift in tone — the president, in his reply to his Budget vote on Thursday, said he was pleased Leon had not been heckled — Leon said: ”I think it is important to examine what the real obstacle to better relations between the government and the opposition has been.
”President Mbeki and I clearly disagreed about the nature of the HIV/Aids pandemic — the ‘health issue’, as he preferred to describe it — and its causes.
”But the President also feared he would be seen as sharing his power and his stature with me if we were to work together.”
In the debate in Parliament this week, Leon suggested to the President that ”if we want development to succeed, we should not allow the institutions of democracy to weaken.
”We should not, for example, tolerate the weakening of Parliament’s oversight role — which the president demonstrated yesterday [Thursday] by failing again to answer DA MP Eddie Trent’s direct, yes-or-no questions about the arms deal.”
However, Leon said if the president’s new attitude represented a considered and genuine attempt to return to the core values of freedom, tolerance and accountability at the heart of the constitutional order, then it was, in fact, the right deed for the right reason.
”In that case, we should not only welcome the president’s change of heart, but seize the opportunity it presents to build a stronger, more democratic and prosperous future.”
In his reply to his Budget debate, Mbeki said he had to ”express appreciation for the remarks” made by Leon and the manner in which he expressed his views.
He said he was pleased that MPs had ”truly respected his [Leon’s] right to state his views by containing their heckling, making it possible for all of us to hear what he had to say”, but he added the rider, ”regardless of its merits”. — I-Net Bridge