November 4, 2008
It is no longer the news that Mr. Mbeki has been unceremoniously demoted from grace to grass. The intelligent and erudite president of South Africa has been dismissed by his party Africa National Congress (ANC). Many people see it coming except Mbeki who has been blinded by the power of the presidency. One can accuse Mbeki of many things but we can all come to an agreement that the man is exceptionally gifted. He is academically brilliant, a gentleman with a first rate mind and temperament needed to run such a complicated enterprise like South Africa. He understood the complexity of South African politics. The Black South Africans majority are poor, angry and hungry. While the minority white population is gripped with fear and uncertainty. Mbeki understood this complexity but uncertainty is the key to unknown, which became his vulnerability. The overconfidence, overflowing pride, inevitability of power or what?
Foremost, Thabo Mbeki failed to recognize his desperate constituency which is the Black majority South Africans who have been abused and lived in penury poverty without adequate housing, food and water. Now the people are angry with the man because in the schemes of things he misplaced his priorities and direction. He down played the scourge of AIDS in his country and even went as far as intellectualizing such a real problem. People were dying and he is busy debating the cause of AIDS. There is a simpleton in making, people are angry and he has begun to lose their support and loyalty.
The Blacks expected a lot from President Mbeki, such a high expectation is a tall order to meet. While the white minority anticipated from him to continue in the steps of the Great Nelson Mandela, letting the dog to lie low and continue to march on without reminding them the price of injustice. Mbeki knew he needed everybody in South Africa and worked very hard not to alienate anybody. He catered to the elites and capitalists and reassured them with his fiscal conservative policy. He was ready to do business with the uppity and never desire to threaten the status quo. He balanced the state budget on the back of the poor. He doled out tax breaks and goodies for the investors. While he groomed the upcoming Black elites and rich, unintentionally he neglected the poor of his country. Mbeki was even criticized for addressing the overall Black empowerment with inadequate resources and attention. Simply put, Mbeki was accused of evading the poor of his country.
The endless problems of the continent: Civil wars and political disturbances in Congo, Zimbabwe, Burundi and many others beckon Mbeki's presence and attention. The most pressing was that of Zimbabwe where Robert Mugabe refused to give up power, therefore creating a political instability that comes with hyperinflation never seen since Weiner Republic. Just like 1920 German inflation, Zimbabwe has no commodities to trade and Zimbabwe government printed money to deal with the crisis. The country has been destabilized by Robert Mugabe and his cohorts.
The West was breathing heavily on the back of Mbeki because they wanted him to be more decisive in the Mugabe's Zimbabwe. President Mbeki came up with the African renaissance theory and see all these problems as an intellectual issue, with can be dissolved and resolved by the renewal of the African mind. It might sound good on the paper but how do you go about transforming a continent or even a country when the people lived in squalor and ignorance.
Now the third wave: Crossing path with Jacob Zuma, the ultimate load that breaks the camel's back. The tussle and fight of power within the ANC family has just begun and Mbeki jumped in with his bare two feet in bowl of power contention with arrogance and pride. He rattles so many feathers and made so many enemies. The weight of the battle that Mbeki picked with charismatic and popular Zuma, whom he dismissed as his vice president broke his back. Subsequently, Zuma the consummate politician overwhelmed Mbeki and the rest, they said, is history.
*Emeka Chiakwelu is the Founding director/principal policy strategist of Afripol Organization.
Africa Political and Economic Strategic Center (Afripol) is foremost a public policy center whose fundamental objective is to broaden the parameters of public policy debates in Africa. To advocate, promote and encourage free enterprise, democracy, human rights, conflict resolutions, transparency and probity in Africa.
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