We cannot all be masters, nor all masters cannot be truly followed. W. Shakespeare, Othello the Moor of Venice
We’ve been pretty quiet up until now about Jacob Zuma and his victory at Polokwane but that’s about to change. So here is the first inevitable post looking into the reasons for Thabo Mbeki’s defeat. In the next post Mike focuses on whether Jacob Zuma will be good for Zionist Jews in SA.
Last year I read William Gumede’s controversial book ‘Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC’.
The book, although heavily biased towards the left, is a more than useful insight into the Mbeki presidency and the reasons for his recent defeat to Jacob Zuma. When looking back upon Polokwane, the central message from Gumede is that it was ultimately Mbeki’s alienating style of leadership that has given us Zuma.
Gumede paints a picture of a divisive rule in a shadowy climate of fear. Mbeki was intolerant of opinions that deviated from his own and whilst at times engaging in debate it was never with a view to re-evaluating his positions.
A qualification - a good leader must be able to make unpopular decisions. This will be Zuma’s test. Thabo Mbeki will go down in history as being more than capable of making these decisions– some of which hurt his popularity but were ultimately good for South Africa (GEAR over the RDP).
I am not going to address the successes and failings of Mbeki’s presidency here. Unfortunately, I think these have very little to do with his popularity, and it was ultimately his lack of popularity that decided the ANC presidency vote at Polokwane.
It’s always useful to look towards former President Nelson Mandela for some wisdom. At Mafikeng in 1997 Nelson Mandela offered President Mbeki some advice that the President could have done well to swallow. Mandela said “The leader must keep the forces together, but you can’t do that unless you allow dissent. People should be able to criticise the leader without fear or favour.”
Gumede’s volume illustrates the crucial importance of Mandela’s warning, describing Mbeki’s Achilles Heel as his demand for “centralised control and an absence of dissent.”
Gumede proceeds, “Mbeki [has been] uncompromising [in his] ‘you are with us or against us’ attitude. He sees all criticism of government policy as a personal attack, and those who dare express views that contradict his own are categorised as secretly hating him, or worse, wanting to topple him.” This fevered paranoia was not just directed at the opposition parties, the worst of it was reserved for Tokyo Sexwale, Matthews Phosa (both now firmly in the Zuma camp) and Cyril Ramaphosa who were accused in 2001 of plotting to boot Mbeki out of the presidency.
Mebki’s most controversial policy provides the best example of how his divisive style filtered down to his loyal supporters. Gumede tells of an ANC National Executive Council Meeting in March 2002 when Nelson Mandela pleaded for the government to distribute the anti-retroviral drug Nevirapine to all HIV-infected pregnant women at state hospitals.
The meeting turned into a sorry embarrassment for the ANC, for as Mandela spoke, he was heckled by the Mebki-ites – (the very same Mbeki loyalists now complaining about the bad behaviour of the Zuma supporters at the Polokwane conference!). The louder Mandela spoke, the louder the heckling became.
Ironically, Mandela had earlier bemoaned the lack of internal debate within the ANC pointing out that not a single cabinet minister had opposed Mbeki’s views on AIDs.
Mandela was later castigated by the Mbeki-ites for daring to oppose official ANC policy on the ARVs.
This is but one example, but it profoundly depicts the way in which President Mbeki ultimately lost the ANC – Mbeki’s insistence in ANC members towing the party line trumped age-old ANC traditions like respect and dialogue.
His intolerance of any criticism created divisions which boiled over in the run-up to Polokwane. His tendency to create enemies where there were none stifled debate instilling a fear in the hearts of those who disagreed with him.
In the end, the antagonism towards President Mbeki was so overt that Zuma’s landslide victory came as no surprise. I think most South Africans agree on the fact that we need change. Unfortunately, Zuma was not the change I had in mind. Still, I will remain positive and hope that, should Zuma ascend to the presidency of the country, his street smarts will be enough to ensure that he surrounds himself with the right people who can steer his ship in the direction of responsible governance.
If I could send a message to Zuma as he celebrates his fourth (or is it fifth?) wedding it would be that he should look north and learn from Kenya. Whilst comparisons with the current turmoil are grossly inaccurate it cannot be denied that the much of Zuma’s support is coloured with the same logic that defines the lines of violence in Kenya today.
Adam Habib writing in the Sunday Times today says Zuma’s most important statement on accepting his victory was, “Your mandate to me is temporary; you can take it at any time you want.” Let’s hope that his leadership of the ANC echoes these sentiments.
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