Thabo Mbeki
Categories: 1942 births | Presidents of South Africa | Current national leaders | Chairman of the African Union
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Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki (born June 18, 1942) is the President of the Republic of South Africa.
Born in the Transkei region of South Africa, Mbeki is the son of Govan Mbeki (1910 - 2001), a stalwart of the African National Congress (ANC) and the South African Communist Party. Mbeki has a Master of Economics degree from the University of Sussex. Facing arrest and imprisonment in apartheid South Africa, he spent many years in exile in the United Kingdom, only returning to his homeland after the release of Nelson Mandela. He was one of a number of young ANC militants to be sent abroad for education and to continue anti-apartheid activities in exile.
Mbeki joined the African National Congress at the age of 14, representing it abroad from 1967. He was appointed head of the ANC's information department in 1984 and of its international department in 1989. While in these roles, he was close to Oliver Tambo who served as a powerful mentor. He became a deputy president of South Africa in May 1994 on the attainment of universal suffrage, and sole deputy-president in June 1996. He succeeded Nelson Mandela as ANC president in December 1997 and as president of the Republic in June 1999 (inaugurated on June 16); he was subsequently reelected for a second term in April 2004.
Mbeki is noted for heading the formation of both NEPAD and the African Union and has played influential roles in brokering peace deals in Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo. He has also tried to popularise the concept of an African Renaissance. He has been a notably powerful figure in African politics, positioning South Africa as a regional powerbroker and also promoting the idea that African political conflicts should be solved by Africans. He sees African dependence on aid and foreign intervention as a major barrier to the continent being taken seriously in the world of economics and politics, and sees structures like NEPAD and the AU as part of a process in which Africa solves its own problems without relying on outside assistance.
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Economic Policies
Some South African political analysts have seen a split within the ANC between the "prisoner" generation (ANC leaders like Mandela and others who studied political theory with each other while in prison), and the "exiles" like Mbeki, who studied economics in Western universities and helped the ANC-in-exile gain credibility with Western nations and corporations. Mbeki and his exile counterparts--responsible for representing the ANC to the West during the ANC's successful efforts to isolate the apartheid government internationally in the 1980s--were perhaps more acutely conscious of the compromises that the ANC would have to make once it gained power.
Few in the ANC anticipated the economic shambles of the sanctions-hobbled and high-spending apartheid government; rather than redistributing a massive inheritance of white economic power, the ANC was forced into austerity measures and deficit reduction. While Nelson Mandela represents the warmth of the socialist vision of the ANC, Mbeki and his allies within government ultimately were forced to emphasize market-oriented approaches to South African economic policy. And even beyond the difficulties of inheriting the debts of apartheid, philosophicaly Mbeki appears to believe that economic growth is a precondition of economic redistribution. Additionally, he has emphasized avoidance of debt as a way of maintaining political and economic independence for the newly democratic state.
As the CIA Factbook summarizes it, "South African economic policy is fiscally conservative, but pragmatic, focusing on targeting inflation and liberalizing trade as means to increase job growth and household income." [1] Mbeki has emphasized that any policy that would redistribute wealth at the expense of economic growth and deficit reduction would ultimately put the nation into a downward spiral of market shrinkage and debt accumulation, and has pointed to Zimbabwe's post-liberation direction as an example of the dangers of an overly redistributive approach.
Like so many things in South Africa, this policy choice has difficult racial implications: the ANC must walk a difficult balance between pleasing the white-dominated business community--which might have taken its capital elsewhere under a more explicitly socialist regime--and keeping the ANC's promises to its core constituency of the impoverished black majority. Mbeki explains his policies in Africanist terms, and believes deeply in the idea of black empowerment. But he does so by tuning his policies to the constraints of market forces rather than attempting to overturn capitalism's organizing principles, as earlier generations of liberation politicians might have attempted to do.
This policy direction, embodied by the Growth, Employment And Redistribution program (GEAR), has often been unpopular with leftist constituencies inside and outside of the ANC, including ANC-affiliated labor unions within the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the non-party-affiliated "social movements" which have protested against Mbeki's policies on AIDS, service delivery (e.g., the government's insistence on payment from the poor for utilities like electricity and water), and land redistribution. However, while there is a white-dominated and more free-market-oriented opposition party in the Democratic Alliance which has sometimes criticized affirmative action efforts or other policies oriented towards redressing apartheid's inequalities, the business community inside and outside of the country has retained faith in the ANC government to a degree that defies many pre-democracy predictions. And although unemployment remains high and black poverty remains the rule rather than the exception, the economy overall has grown. Perhaps as a result, most South Africans remain loyal to the ANC and to Mbeki's government, and are willing to see economic transformation and redistribution of wealth as a long-term and gradual process.
Political Style
Mbeki has sometimes been characterized as remote and academic, although in his second campaign for Presidency in 2004, many observers described him as finally relaxing into a more traditional campaign mode, sometimes dancing at events and even kissing babies. Nonetheless, the fact that this was remarkable confirms the broader observation that Mbeki is a man who values the exercise of centralized policy over demonstrations of grassroots populism. Mbeki's thinking can often be found in his weekly column in the ANC newsletter ANC Today [2], where he often produces long discourses on a variety of topics. He sometimes uses his column to deliver pointed invectives against political opponents, and at other times uses it as a kind of professor of political theory, educating ANC cadres on the intellectual justifications for ANC policy. Although these columns are remarkable for their dense prose, they nonetheless often manage to make news. And although Mbeki does not generally make a point of befriending or courting reporters, his columns and news events have often yielded good results for his administration by ensuring that his message is a primary driving force of news coverage [3] Indeed, in initiating his columns, Mbeki stated his view that the bulk of South African media sources did not speak for or to the South African majority, and stated his intent to use ANC Today to speak directly to his constituents rather than through the media. [4]
Mbeki and the Internet
Mbeki clearly is comfortable with the Internet. For instance, in a column [5] discussing Hurricane Katrina, he cited Wikipedia, quoted at length a discussion of Katrina's lessons on American inequality from the Native American publication Indian Country Today ([6]), and then included excerpts from a David Brooks column in the New York Times in a discussion of why the events of Katrina illustrated the necessity for global development and redistribution of wealth. His penchant for quoting diverse and sometimes obscure sources, both from the Internet and from a wide variety of books, makes his column an interesting parallel to political blogs although the ANC does not describe or promote it in these terms. His views on AIDS (see below) were derived from Internet searching which led him to so-called "AIDS dissident" websites, and in this case, Mbeki's use of the Internet was roundly criticized and even ridiculed by opponents.
Controversies: Zimbabwe
Mbeki has been attempting to restore dialogue between Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and the opposition MDC in the face of denials from both parties. He has faced heavy criticism for his policy of 'quiet diplomacy' and opposing Mugabe's recent suspension from the Commonwealth. A fact-finding mission in 2004 by COSATU to Zimbabwe lead to their widely-publicised deportation back to South Africa – this has subsequently reopened the debate, even within the ANC, as to whether Mbeki's policy of 'quiet diplomacy' is constructive.
Controversies: AIDS
Mbeki's views on the causes and treatment of AIDS have also been subject to criticism, most notably his defence (April 2000) of a small group of dissident scientists who claim that HIV is not the cause of the disease (See AIDS reappraisal). Though applauded by AIDS activists for its successful legal defence (April 2001) of cheaper locally-produced AIDS drugs against action brought by transnational pharmaceutical companies, his government has been accused of failing to respond adequately to the epidemic. Current estimates suggest that 6.3 million people have HIV, one of the largest HIV+ populations of any country in the world, and by far the largest for countries of South Africa's size. His government was specifically criticized by groups such as Treatment Action Campaign for not having a national treatment program for AIDS that included anti-retroviral medicines, the drugs that target HIV specifically. Patients with HIV could get treated for opportunistic infections they suffered from due to their weakened immune system, but could not get the drugs that would find the virus weakening them.
In the current South African system, the Cabinet can override the President, and although its votes are private, it appeared to have done so in votes to declare as Cabinet policy that HIV is the cause of AIDS; and then, in August 2003, in a promise to formulate a national treatment plan that would include ARVs. However, the Health Ministry is still headed by Dr. Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who has served as health minister since December 2000, and has promoted nutritional approaches to AIDS while highlighting potential toxicities of antiretroviral drugs, leading critics to question whether the same leadership that opposed ARV treatment would effectively carry out the treatment plan. Indeed, implementation has been slow and activists still criticize Mbeki's AIDS policies.
It is difficult to determine what has led Mbeki to hold some unorthodox views of AIDS and the AIDS crisis. While serving as deputy President, AIDS was in his portfolio, and he customarily wore a red ribbon while promoting more conventional views of HIV and AIDS; the shift in his views apparently came after he assumed the Presidency. Some speculate that the suspicion engendered by a life in exile and by the colonial domination and control of Africa led Mbeki to react against the idea of AIDS as another Western characterization of Africans as promiscuous and Africa as a continent of disease and hopelessness. Many Africans find it suspicious that black Africans bear the largest share of the AIDS burden, and that the drugs to treat it are expensive and sold in the main by Western pharmaceutical companies. The history of malicious and manipulative health policies of the colonial and apartheid governments in Africa also contribute to this view.
Other Criticism
In 2004 the Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, Desmond Tutu, criticized President Mbeki for surrounding himself by "yes-men" and not doing enough to improve the position of the poor. Mbeki responded in scathing language calling Desmond Tutu an "icon of the white people" and a "media creation".
Mbeki was also criticized by many members of his own party over the firing of the deputy president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma in 2005 after the latter was implicated in a corruption scandal. In October of 2005, a few Zuma supporters went so far as to burn t-shirts with Mbeki's picture on them at one protest, inspiring condemnation from the ANC leadership. The split between Zuma supporters and Mbeki's allies in the party foretells the likelihood of intense political drama surrounding the selection of Mbeki's successor, once thought inevitably to be Zuma.
See also
References
External links
- Mbeki - ANC official page
- Google news search for current items re: Mbeki
- "Thabo Mbeki - a man of two faces" in "The Economist" magazine
- "The Guardian Profile: Thabo Mbeki", archived at www.buzzle.com
- Editorial comment from Zimbabwean website critiquing Zimbabwe policy
| Preceded by: {{{before}}}}|before=F.W. de Klerk}} | {{{title}}} {{{years}}}}|title=Deputy President of South Africa|years=1997–1999}} | Succeeded by: {{{after}}} |
| Preceded by: {{{before}}}}|before=Nelson Mandela}} | {{{title}}} {{{years}}}}|title=President of South Africa|years=1999–present}} | Succeeded by: {{{after}}} |
| Preceded by: {{{before}}}}|before=none}} | {{{title}}} {{{years}}}}|title=Chairman of the African Union|years=2002–2003}} | Succeeded by: {{{after}}} |
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