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/ 8 February 2008

‘Business as usual’ for Thabo Mbeki

There was nothing ”unusual” about President Thabo Mbeki’s Friday State of the Nation address, Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille said. ”Contrary to the stated theme of his speech, this was business as usual for the president,” she said. Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille said Mbeki’s address was ”another list of promises”.

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/ 2 February 2007

Thabo Mbeki’s new age of denial?

A week before President Thabo Mbeki’s State of the Nation address, his “age of hope”, trumpeted in last year’s speech, is at risk. Despite 96 straight months of economic growth his recent dismissal of concerns about of two of South Africa’s most pernicious social ills — crime and corruption — have undercut public confidence in his presidency.

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/ 4 July 2006

Thabo Mbeki is not Hugo Chávez

Thabo Mbeki’s intellectual biographer clearly sees it as his job to justify the president’s ways to South Africa. He does this not just by parroting his subject and muse but also by sallying forth to yap, Maltese poodle-style, at the president’s adversary of the moment.

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/ 30 June 2006

Thabo Mbeki axes judges Bills

Controversial draft legislation aimed at overhauling the structure of the judiciary has been shelved after the intervention of President Thabo Mbeki. Senior government and parliamentary officials say formal consideration of the proposed laws has been suspended, and will not begin again until they are redrafted.

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/ 11 August 2005

What is Thabo Mbeki trying to achieve?

President Thabo Mbeki and his government are desperately trying to limit public embarrassment over the widely publicised political conditions they have reportedly attached to an emergency bail-out for President Robert Mugabe. They should have followed the diplomatic principle enunciated by classical Greek dramatist Euripides.

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/ 27 May 2005

Thabo Mbeki to ‘compare notes’ with George Bush

An African agenda for the July meeting of the Group of Eight (G8) industrialised nations is to be canvassed when President Thabo Mbeki meets United States President George Bush in Washington next week. Bush extended an invitation to Mbeki a few weeks ago for talks at the White House, partly to discuss the upcoming summit at Gleneagles in Scotland.