Thabo Mbeki has spent years — and a good deal of jet fuel — in his efforts to convince African and world leaders that his gradual approach to resolving the crisis in Zimbabwe offered the only real prospect of success.
He came close to being right — indications were that a relatively free election had taken place and that Zanu-PF and Robert Mugabe had lost. But, in the tortured aftermath of that outcome, Mbeki’s studied neutrality — and his laughable claim that there is no crisis in Zimbabwe — began again to look like support for Mugabe and has left him almost entirely isolated on the international stage.
This week the United Nations’s Ban Ki-moon, who has left Zimbabwe to Mbeki, finally spoke out.
Ban said what should be obvious: release the results and, if there is a second round of voting, it should be conducted in a fair and transparent manner. Ban sounded impatient with Mbeki’s repeated plea that the Southern African Development Community (SADC) should be allowed to deal with the matter.
In fact the United States, Britain, Italy and the European Union all raised concerns about the escalating tension in Zimbabwe.
Even our neighbour Botswana uncharacteristically came out in public criticism of Mbeki. In a frank interview with the Mail & Guardian, Botswana Foreign Minister Phandu Skelemani said: “Everyone agreed that things are not normal, except Mbeki. Maybe Mbeki is so deeply involved that he firmly believes things are going right.”
You can be sure there are similar sentiments in Zambia, where President Levy Mwanawasa is increasingly critical of Mugabe, and in other SADC capitals, where several leaders are now telling journalists and diplomats that they no longer see Mbeki as an honest broker, citing his role in watering down last week’s communiqué by the regional body.
Even his own political party, the African National Congress, has called the crisis by its name and indicated that it will circumvent him by writing to Zanu-PF and to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change to call for negotiations.
All this amounts to a major blow to Mbeki’s credibility as mediator. It is not good enough for him to say, as he did in New York this week, that he meant there was no election crisis in Zimbabwe and did not mean to suggest there was no broader economic crisis.
It is also not enough to insist on the integrity of internal Zimbabwean and SADC processes. Both are clearly inadequate.
Mbeki rightfully claims credit for the fact that the MDC was allowed to campaign in rural areas and that the election day itself was relatively peaceful. That is little comfort now that the result is being subverted by other means.
There are hints now that an SADC delegation of elder statesmen will be convened to press Mugabe to release the election results to allow a genuine run-off. That offers a glimmer of hope.
But we believe the time has come for Mbeki to step down as mediator. His efforts are now holding back a resolution, rather than advancing it. It is time for someone else to take up the baton.
The Bling-Bling club
There’s an ad for Virgin Money products that features the consumption mecca of a fabled land called Blingola. It’s the South Africa of marketers’ dreams where everyone is rich and they all spend, spend, spend!
Of course the reality is, as usual, very different. Ours is a developing nation with pockets of affluence. But, on the whole, people are poor and getting hungrier as this week’s series of food price protests show. We have no adequate poverty studies, but national statistics suggest that only about one in 10 people live in the fabled Blingola.
And lots of those are paid for from citizens’ pockets because they work in government. Governing bling is big: from convoys to bodyguards, first-class travel, swish hotels and quantities of food to feed a homeless army; our public servants live the high life.
National treasury statistics recently suggested that about R2,3-billion was wasted in the financial year then under review. Of course we do not advocate that politicians and senior civil servants starve (though many could do with a low-fat diet) or earn packages unrelated to the market, but do we need this degree of bling?
This week we report on two mayors who have fitted blue lights and sirens to their cars — at about R15Â 000 each — while King Goodwill Zwelithini in KwaZulu-Natal will splurge R40-million this year, most of it on bling like Mercs for him and his wives (their Toyotas were judged not royal enough) and on farms on which very little grows.
This VIP culture creates massive social distance and has come to symbolise a ruling party that has quickly forgotten its roots. Of course, not all politicians live in Blingola, but more and more do.
Our “Bling-Bling Club” campaign will highlight examples of this conspicuous high-life consumption. We hope you will keep us informed of public servants who live this way and of those who don’t.