Madiba’s shoes too big for Mbeki, Zuma

Former South Africa presidents Thabo Mbeki (left) and Nelson Mandela at a past event. [PHOTO: AFP]

By KIPCHUMBA SOME AND AGENCIES

Given his phenomenal larger-than-life stature, it was natural that Nelson Mandela’s successors to the South African presidency would be closely watched if they fit in the old man’s big shoes.

It was always going to be unfair to compare Mandela, who died this week Thursday aged 95, with any of his successors since it is agreed almost universally that he has no living political equal.

However, in the court of public opinion, his two successors Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma have fallen too far below the expectations of many, even by the unmatched low African standards.

Mandela never really wanted Mbeki, who was his deputy, to succeed him preferring instead Cyril Ramaphosa, the trade unionist who had negotiated South Africa’s new constitution.

However, having secured the support of the ANC top brass, Mbeki, ever the cold schemer, out-maneuvered Mandela to the top seat. Mandela obliged.

Safe pair of hands

Mbeki was seen as a safe pair of hands to steer the economy in the right direction – which he did – and to assuage the fears of the whites who felt that South Africa might descend to anarchy under somebody else.

But soon, the differences between Mandela and Mbeki became apparent. Mbeki, who had spent most of his adult life in exile was an elitist, more at home in international workshops and conferences.

To many South Africans, he seemed aloof and bereft of the common touch, the finesse of the street-wise politician that Mandela was famously known for.

But it was their approach to the Aids pandemic that was killing South Africans by their thousands that brought the two leaders to what amounted to a public spat.

Mbeki became an object of ridicule in international circles when he denied that Aids existed and suggested that the disease was part of a racial war being fought by the West against Africans.

He suggested that home-based cures consisting of roots and leaves could cure the disease rather than the drugs manufactured by pharmaceutical companies in the west.

This refusal to acknowledge the magnitude of the Aids pandemic delayed the government’s reaction to a crisis that was wiping out South Africa’s sons and daughters at their most productive ages.

This approach to the issue angered Mandela, who opened public debate on the Aids after he acknowledged in public that his son Makgatho had died of Aids-related complications in 2005.

Besides this, Mandela and Mbeki clashed on issues of governance although both were too respectful of each other to have these differences play out in the media.

In the 2007 interview, speaking on the condition that he not be quoted until after his death, Mandela was openly scornful of Mbeki’s leadership, writes Mark Gevisser, the author of A Legacy of Liberation: Thabo Mbeki and the Future of the South African Dream.

The ANC, Gevisser quotes Mandela, had always succeeded as a movement and a party because it had drawn on the collective wisdom of its many constituencies.

“There is a great deal of centralisation now under President Mbeki, where he takes decisions himself,” Mandela declared.

“We never liked that.”

Ruling by charm

In interviews published in Gevisser’s biography, Mbeki chaffed at President Mandela’s ability to rule by charm and stature, with little attention to the mechanics of governing.

“Madiba didn’t pay any attention to what the government was doing,” Mbeki said, using the clan name for his predecessor. “We had to, because somebody had to.”

Perhaps Mbeki’s great misfortune was being compared with others which eventually cost him his job. South Africans, especially the rank and file of ANC, saw Mandela’s common mien, which Mbeki so lacked, in his deputy Jacob Zuma.

Mbeki was always contrasted with more flamboyant, leopard-wearing, polygamous Zuma, who he summarily fired in 2005 after investigations on corruption were opened against him.

It was not long before the wily Zuma turned the tables on Mbeki by mounting a rebellion within the ANC, which saw Mbeki forced out of office in 2007.

But things have not been any better for majority of South Africans under Zuma, who came in to office with the baggage of having been charged and acquitted of rape charges.

It is widely argued that the seed of corruption was sown under Mandela’s watch when Western companies greased the palms of senior officials to win military contracts.

But the seed of corruption has finally blossomed into an ugly flower with more and more public officials close to the presidency being accused of taking bribes.

For example, the source of former ANC youth leader Julius Malema’s wealth has been a source of debate, with several reports claiming that he accepted bribes in order to facilitate contracts for international companies in South Africa.

Houses for wives

Currently, President Zuma is in the eye of a storm after it was discovered that he had built his wives houses at a cost of $14 million in a questionable manner.

While eulogising Mandela in the New York Times, Zakes Mda, the son of Ashby Peter Mda, Mandela’s friend and a founder of ANC Youth League said: “Today the political apparatchiks are the new billionaires, led by a President — Jacob Zuma — who blatantly used millions of taxpayer dollars to upgrade his private residence to accommodate his expanding harem and a phalanx of children.”

Meanwhile South Africa continues to slide down in nearly all indicators: unemployment remains high, the economy is still in the hands of the white minority and the poverty gap keeps widening.