/ 13 October 2006

Leon: Mbeki has placed his head deeper in the sand

The whole of South Africa, and South African President Thabo Mbeki’s own parliamentary caucus, “is transfixed” by a crisis that has planed value off the rand, propelled shock-waves through investors at home and abroad and all but ground government delivery to a halt — but Mbeki has, with “masterly indifference”, replaced his head more deeply into the sand, says official opposition leader Tony Leon.

In his regular online column on Friday, SA Today, the Democratic Alliance leader noted that he had raised the matter during question time in the National Assembly on Thursday — whether the succession race for president was affecting the government.

Three times now Mbeki had denied, said Leon, “and three times I heard my words come back to me, turned into an unconvincing positive. Let me return the compliment and misquote Mr Mbeki’s summing up: ‘And that’s the truth.’

“President Mbeki does not seem to realise — or care — how wide the credibility gap now yawns between himself and most South Africans after this astonishing evasion.

“It is a crying shame that he will not take the people into his confidence regarding the presidential succession dilemma. Even the [ruling] African National Congress’s [ANC] MPs know there is a meltdown of governance; the parliamentary corridors are so abuzz with rumour that it has even reached the ears of the opposition across the road.

“Notably, President Mbeki did not repudiate the claim he made in July to his party’s national executive committee that the ANC is experiencing ‘a crisis unprecedented in its history’ over the [former deputy president Jacob] Zuma saga; he merely claimed the affair was not affecting governance.”

Leon said: “This is patent eyewash. That the succession issue is a crisis for the country as a whole is not just my view; it is objective reality. For the president to say in effect — like lame-duck British Premier Jim Callaghan, faced with the industrial ‘Winter of Discontent’ of 1979 — ‘Crisis? What crisis?’ is utterly disingenuous.”

Zuma is widely considered a candidate for the presidency of the ruling ANC in next year’s elections at its national conference, but he has not publicly stated that he is in the running.

Leon said such indifference on the part of Mbeki — who has hinted that he would stand for a third term as party leader — “also flies in the face of a darkening national mood, described by Absa economist Christo Luus as ‘the wild card’ right now”.

He quoted Luus as saying: “The Zuma saga, leadership and succession within the ANC are all important issues. But what is of grave, immediate concern is the perception of out-of-control crime, rapid deterioration of government services and institutions and the crumbling of infrastructure.”

Leon said: “In short, if we are truly to reclaim an Age of Hope [referred to in the February State of the Nation address] worthy of the phrase, we need the head of state to close with resolution and dispatch the credibility gap between himself and South Africa.” — I-Net Bridge