In sacking his deputy health minister, a vocal critic of the government’s Aids policies, South African President Thabo Mbeki has finally bared his authoritarian fangs, analysts said.
Mbeki last week dismissed Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, who had campaigned vigorously for a more scientific and proactive government approach to the battle against HIV/Aids.
Her dismissal is “a symptom of the government’s growing intolerance of dissent” under Mbeki, Freedom of Expression Institute executive director Jane Duncan said in a statement.
University of South Africa political analyst Dirk Kotze said Mbeki was pushing away people who were not “yes-men” to create room for loyalists.
Madlala-Routledge’s sacking, ostensibly for attending an Aids conference in Spain without the president’s authorisation, has also been condemned by opposition parties and Aids lobby groups.
It followed her public exposure of abysmal health facilities at a government hospital she visited on the back of media reports of dozens of preventable baby deaths.
Analysts predict her dismissal may trigger a backlash against Mbeki within his ruling African National Congress (ANC).
“By firing the deputy minister, Mbeki has established his authority in the government but not necessarily within the ruling ANC … it further puts Mbeki in a compromising position within the party,” said Kotze.
Independent analyst Xolela Mangcu said the sacking raised uncomfortable questions about the president’s style.
“We ask ourselves: What kind of a country do we have where the president can just stand up and fire people simply because he doesn’t agree with them on such a vital aspect of our public life?” Mangcu told Agence France-Presse.
Mangcu said there was already much unhappiness about Mbeki’s leadership of the ANC, and the recent events provided further ammunition for his detractors.
“The ANC needs to come to terms with the fact that it has got a president who doesn’t really care what the rest of the organisation thinks.”
Mbeki has been accused of hypocrisy in recent days, having failed to axe a number of other senior government officials accused of corruption and wrongdoing.
The president has also attracted flak for questioning the link between HIV and Aids and for not playing an active role in the battle against the syndrome.
Madlala-Routledge, on the other hand, has gone against the government tide by taking a public HIV test and has condemned what she has described as Aids denial at the highest level.
She is known to have been at loggerheads with her boss, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who is no stranger to controversy on the topic of HIV/Aids.
The minister has earned the nickname “Dr Beetroot” for touting the use of vegetables to help combat the disease, and has been widely criticised for not doing enough to speed up the free roll-out of antiretroviral drugs to sufferers.
Out of South Africa’s 48-million people, 5,41-million are thought to be HIV-positive, including 257 000 children under the age of 14.
Many fear Madlala-Routledge’s sacking will put the country’s battle against Aids on the backburner, but the Health Ministry has vowed to press ahead with a national plan that aims to halve new HIV infections by 2011.
Mbeki said he sacked Madlala-Routledge due to her “inability to work as part of a collective” in the Cabinet, and for embarking on an “unapproved” trip to Madrid in June.
But Madlala-Routledge has accused Tshabalala-Msimang of trying to “fix” her, an accusation Tshabalala-Msimang denies.
Mbeki is positioning himself as a candidate for the ANC presidency, with elections due at a party conference in December. — AFP