South African President Thabo Mbeki’s failure to secure a Zimbabwean power-sharing deal at a regional summit has dealt another blow to his credibility as his influence wanes at home.
Mediation in the Zimbabwe talks could be Mbeki’s last chance to improve his image before he has to step down next year after serving two terms.
But the Southern African Development Community (SADC) was unable to get President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to agree to share power at the meeting, at which Mbeki took over as the 15-nation bloc’s chairperson.
Mbeki, accused by critics of being too soft on Mugabe, was left to repeat his longstanding line that no solution can be imposed from outside.
”He could have scored a nice coup if he had pulled off a power-sharing agreement,” said Mark Schroeder, director of risk analysis for sub-Saharan Africa at Stratfor. ”Mbeki will revert to his lame-duck status.”
At home, Mbeki has presided over an economic boom but crime and poverty are still rife. A major crisis over lack of power generation has raised fears about the possible impact on the broader economy.
Growth is slowing and unions say Mbeki’s government has favoured business at the expense of workers and the poor.
South Africa has one of the world’s highest rates of HIV, with an estimated 500 000 people infected each year, and Aids campaigners for years questioned Mbeki’s policies for addressing the pandemic.
Mbeki’s rival, Jacob Zuma, who defeated him in the race to lead the ruling African National Congress (ANC) in December, has taken centre stage in South African politics and has proven far more decisive and forceful than Mbeki on the Zimbabwe crisis.
‘Yesterday’s man’
If Zuma defeats corruption charges in court, he is likely to become South Africa’s next president in 2009 general elections because of the ANC’s electoral dominance.
”It’s way too late for Mbeki to regain his reputation. He is yesterday’s man. Mbeki has proven he can’t produce the goods,” said Ian Taylor, a professor at St Andrews University.
Criticised for his domestic policies, Mbeki wants to be remembered as a champion of African causes, despite what critics say is his ineffectiveness over Zimbabwe, which has flooded his country with millions of economic migrants. Zimbabwe’s crisis has at times had an impact on South Africa’s rand currency.
But analysts say Mbeki’s pan-African dream may be unrealistic, even in his own neighbourhood.
The Zimbabwe crisis has strained SADC, which mandated Mbeki to mediate in the talks. Countries that once went along with Mbeki’s quiet diplomacy in Zimbabwe have lost patience.
Botswana President Seretse Khama Ian Khama boycotted the summit because the country does not recognise Mugabe’s re-election, piling pressure on Mbeki to take a hard line with the Zimbabwean leader, a policy he has long resisted.
”It was certainly a sting for SADC’s disunity to come out in the open like that. Usually these things are shoved under the carpet,” said Schroeder.
Some analysts say Mbeki has succeeded in the sense that he persuaded Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and Mugabe’s Zanu-PF to open power-sharing talks after a disputed and violent election.
But the negotiations, which began last month after Mugabe was re-elected unopposed in June in a vote condemned around the world and boycotted by Tsvangirai because of attacks on his supporters, can only succeed if the two old foes agree on the combustible issue of who runs Zimbabwe, analysts say.
The real challenge for Mbeki is to secure an air-tight deal that can give Zimbabweans a politically stable future free of the world’s highest inflation rate of 2,2-million percent and severe food, fuel and foreign-currency shortages.
But the most he can hope for now is an artificial settlement, not one that will give him the legacy he hopes for because animosity between Mugabe and Tsvangirai runs deep, said Steven Friedman, a political analyst at the University of Johannesburg.
”It strikes me as impossible,” he said. — Reuters