Africa, Development & Aid, Headlines | Analysis

SOUTH AFRICA: High Noon as Mbeki, 11 Cabinet Members Resign

Analysis by Christi van der Westhuizen

CAPE TOWN, Sep 23 2008 (IPS) - South Africa has been in the grip of political drama for the past two years, with high-profile power mongering culminating this week in the resignation of President Thabo Mbeki on the instruction of the ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), with a significant number of his cabinet following suit.

Mbeki accepted his fate with a demure address on national television on Sep 21. His deputy, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, today announced her resignation. They are joined by a significant number of other cabinet ministers including minister of finance Trevor Manuel; minister of public enterprises Alec Erwin; minister of defence Mosioua Lekota; deputy minister of foreign affairs Aziz Pahad; and deputy minister of finance Jabu Moleketi.

Mbeki had succeeded Nelson Mandela in 1999, subsequent to serving as deputy president after South Africa's first democratic election in 1994. He had received international acclaim as the driving force behind the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and for popularising the idea of an African Renaissance.

However, these achievements have been overshadowed by recent developments revealing the abuse of institutions created to fulfil the requirements of South Africa's internationally admired Constitution and Bill of Rights.

On Sep. 12, Judge Chris Nicholson found that the country's former deputy president and current ANC president Jacob Zuma's right to a fair trial was breached because Mbeki and successive justice ministers interfered with the processes of the national prosecuting authority. The ANC's national executive committee (NEC) decided at the weekend to relieve Mbeki of his duties.

Zuma is alleged to have solicited a bribe from French arms company Thint/Thales in exchange for promoting its bid to supply arms in a 1999 deal then worth 4.8 billion dollars. Mbeki dismissed Zuma from his position as deputy president in 2005, when his business associate Schabir Shaik was convicted on corruption charges relating to the arms deal.

Zuma's supporters, which include the ANC's leftist allies the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party (SACP), have been alleging political meddling since the prosecution of Zuma was first mooted in 2003.

Mbeki denies interfering in the prosecution. Nevertheless, Zuma and his allies have been able to turn dominant opinion inside the ruling party against Mbeki, leading to Mbeki and most of his coterie being ousted from the ANC's National Executive Committee at a party conference in 2007.

Disenchantment with Mbeki from beyond the ANC and its alliance partners began much earlier.

A public outcry followed his sacking of deputy health minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge in August 2007 for speaking out about a crisis in the health system which led to the deaths of babies in a rural hospital.

To his critics, this was the continuation of a theme that had become common during his presidential term. It can be summed up as a denial of the reality of South Africans' lives. One of the earliest instances was his questioning in the late 1990s of rape figures in a country acknowledged as having one of the highest rates of rape on the globe.

Mbeki's subsequent denial of the link between HIV and AIDS in a country which has one of the highest rates of infection in the world also drew outrage far and wide. His HIV denialism overshadowed his legitimate highlighting of the role that poverty plays in creating the social conditions that fuel the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

The denialism continued with the Mbeki government's rejection of the United Nations Development Programme's finding in 2003 that inequality had worsened since 1994 because of the government's neoliberal economic policy.

In later years, the official figure for the expanded definition of unemployment (which includes people who have given up looking for work) was not being reported, apparently to hide the extent of joblessness. It is said to be hovering at 42 percent, according to a recent article by South African Human Rights Commissioner Leon Wessels.

In the context of persistent high unemployment, poverty necessarily remains entrenched, with as much as half of the population excluded from the formal economy. According to the United Nations, some 22 million South Africans still live under the breadline.

Mbeki also attracted unfavourable public attention when he infamously stated that crime was not as bad as South Africans thought – this in a country with a murder rate that yet again tops those of most other countries.

But the issue that has finally toppled him is the abuse of institutions, which did not start with Zuma. At the end of the 1990s, Mbeki accused other senior members of the ANC – Tokyo Sexwale, Matthews Phosa and Cyril Ramaphosa – of hatching a plot to topple him. No evidence existed but a police investigation was used to ''persuade'' them to leave active politics.

During the same period, the executive moved swiftly to stifle any possibility of Parliament exercising its oversight role to probe the arms deal. Dissenters were summarily removed from positions while sycophants toeing the party line were promoted. This set the tone for the 2000s.

Madlala-Routledge's dismissal fit into this trend. Then Mbeki suspended the national director for public prosecutions Vusi Pikoli towards the end of last year. Mbeki was unhappy with Pikoli's decision to arrest national police commissioner and then head of Interpol Jackie Selebi on charges of corruption. Selebi has since also been suspended, pending his prosecution.

What does all of this mean for South Africa's future in the medium term? Mbeki centralised decision-making in his offices as president of the country and ANC president. He silenced those with questioning minds and rewarded sycophancy. The determination of his opponents to remove him should be seen as the result of the shutting down of democratic space.

Mbeki's governing style has also created an atmosphere of disregard for constitutional institutions and democratic practice. The restriction of democratic space raised the stakes tremendously.

In this context, the drive to wrest power from the Mbeki faction has included attacks on the integrity of the judiciary and individual judges; calls to "kill for Zuma"; and a defiant attitude towards the South African Human Rights Commission.

It could be argued that Mbeki deserved to be removed, given his denialism and resultant failures. However, his removal and the shedding of many of his cabinet members may exacerbate the lull in state service delivery which has crept in since the election of Zuma as ANC president, which caused two centres of power. Government may sink into a deeper paralysis if the new leadership does not urgently appoint replacements to the ministerial posts and convey a message of stability to civil servants.

This will be complicated as the civil service itself has become politicised in the battle between the factions. Moreover, the ANC, like other parties, needs to finalise its proportional list of representatives for parliament in the run-up to next year's election, as well as elections of provincial party leaderships. These processes have already led to party branch meetings collapsing in bloodshed, with at least one person killed and several others stabbed or shot in fights between the two factions.

With the Mbeki clique's en masse resignation, they have thrown down the gauntlet. Will the Zuma faction pick it up?