President Thabo Mbeki is to meet outgoing Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon at the Union Buildings in Pretoria on Thursday.
The meeting appears to be a first for the two men with Leon, head of South Africa’s main opposition party, reportedly describing their relationship as strained.
In an interview with Agence France-Presse (AFP), Leon said the two had never had a private meeting in their roles as president and leader of the opposition.
Leon blamed much of the African National Congress’s perceived intolerance of political opposition on Mbeki. He told AFP that Mbeki’s conduct was markedly different from that of South Africa’s first democratic president and his predecessor Nelson Mandela.
He said Mandela, ”used to introduce me to the pope or the queen and say: ‘this is the man who gives me all the trouble’, and then he would slap me on the back and laugh”.
”[Mbeki] has never been as comfortable with open discourse and public debate, or private debate for that matter.”
Both men and their parties are at a crossroads with Leon stepping down as leader of the DA on Saturday and the ANC’s 52nd national conference taking place in December, when the country’s ruling party will elect its leadership ahead of the
2009 national election.
Cape Town mayor Helen Zille is up against the DA’s federal chairperson Joe Seremane and its Eastern Cape provincial leader Athol Trollip to replace Leon, who led the party since its inception in 2000.
Stony soil
Leon said in the interview that the concept of political opposition had yet to take root in the country.
He said his main task in eight years as official opposition leader was ”to get the very concept itself accepted on the stony soil of South African ground”.
Leon, who has been branded elitist and racist by sections of the ANC for his opposition on issues such as crime, affirmative action and HIV/Aids, believes South Africa’s government shares a contempt for the opposition with that of neighbouring Zimbabwe.
Even though South Africa enjoys free speech and political campaigning, elements of Mugabe’s style of government could creep inm he said.
”There are intimations. I don’t think at the moment our government is threatened at the polls nationally like [Zimbabwean President Robert] Mugabe is. One hopes that when they are … that they will behave not like Mugabe.” – Sapa
On Friday, read the Mail & Guardian newspaper’s in-depth interview with Tony Leon