Thabo Mbeki

Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki
12th President of South Africa
Incumbent
Assumed office 1999-06-14
Preceded by	Nelson Mandela
Personal details
Born	(1942-06-18) June 18, 1942 Idutywa, Queenstown, Transkei
Nationality	South African
Political party	African National Congress
Spouse	Zanele Mbeki née Dlamini

Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki (born June 18 1942) is the current President of the Republic of South Africa.

Early years

Born and raised in what is now the Eastern Cape province 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. He is a native Xhosa speaker; his parents were both teachers and activists in a rural area of ANC strength, and Mbeki describes himself as "born into the struggle"; a portrait of Karl Marx sat on the family mantlepiece, and a portrait of Mohandas Gandhi was on the wall. He attended high school at Lovedale but was expelled as a result of the student strikes in 1959. He continued his studies at home and wrote his matriculation at St John's High School in Umtata that same year.

Govan Mbeki had come to the rural Eastern Cape as a political activist after earning two university degrees; he urged his family to make the ANC their family, and of his children, Thabo Mbeki is the one who most clearly followed that instruction, joining the party at age 14 and devoting his life to it thereafter. His cousin Phindile Mfeti disappeared without a trace during the apartheid era, and the family to this day does not know what happened to him.

Exile and return

After leaving the Eastern Cape, he lived in Johannesburg, working with Walter Sisulu. After the arrest and imprisonment of Sisulu, Mandela and his father, and facing a similar fate, Thabo Mbeki left South Africa as one of a number of young ANC militants sent abroad to continue their education and their anti-apartheid activities. He ultimately spent 28 years in exile, only returning to his homeland after the release of Nelson Mandela.

Mbeki spent the early years of his exile in the United Kingdom, earning a Master of Economics degree from the University of Sussex and then working in the ANC's London office on Penton Street. He received military training in what was then the Soviet Union and lived at different times in Botswana, Swaziland and Nigeria, but his primary base was in Lusaka, Zambia, the site of the ANC headquarters.

While in exile, his brother Jama Mbeki was murdered by agents of the Lesotho government in 1982. His son Kwanda–the product of a liaison in Mbeki's teenage years–was killed while trying to leave South Africa to join his father. When Mbeki finally was able to return home to South Africa and was reunited with his own father, the elder Mbeki told a reporter, "You must remember that Thabo Mbeki is no longer my son. He is my comrade!" A news article pointed out that this was an expression of pride, explaining, "For Govan Mbeki, a son was a mere biological appendage; to be called a comrade, on the other hand, was the highest honour."

Mbeki devoted his life to the ANC and during his years in exile was given increased responsibility. Following the 1976 Soweto riots, a student uprising in the township outside Johannesburg, he initiated a regular radio broadcast from Lusaka, tieing ANC followers inside the country to their exiled leaders. Encouraging activists to keep up the pressure on the apartheid regime was a key component in the ANC's campaign to liberate their country. In the late 1970s Mbeki made a number of trips to the United States in search of support among U.S. corporations. Literate and funny, he made a wide circle of friends in New York City. Mbeki was appointed head of the ANC's information department in 1984 and then became head of the international department in 1989, reporting directly to Oliver Tambo, then President of the ANC. Tambo was Mbeki's long-time mentor.

In 1985, Mbeki was a member of a delegation that began meeting secretly with representatives of the South African business community, and in 1989, he led the ANC delegation that conducted secret talks with the South African government. These talks led to the unbanning of the ANC and the release of political prisoners. He also participated in many of the other important discussions between the ANC and the government that eventually led to the democratisation of South Africa.

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.

Role in African politics

Mbeki 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 headed the formation of both the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and the African Union (AU) and has played influential roles in brokering peace deals in Rwanda, Burundi, Ivory Coast and the Democratic Republic of Congo. He has also tried to popularise the concept of an African Renaissance. 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.

Economic policies

The CIA Factbook says: "South African economic policy is fiscally conservative, but pragmatic, focusing on targeting inflation and liberalising trade as means to increase job growth and household income."

Political style

Mbeki giving a speech to District Six land claimants in Cape Town

Mbeki has sometimes been characterised 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. Yet, the fact that this was remarkable confirms the broader observation that Mbeki values the exercise of centralised policy over demonstrations of grassroots populism.

Mbeki's thinking can often be found in his weekly column in the ANC newsletter ANC Today, where he often produces discussions 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 often manage to make news. 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. 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.

Mbeki and the Internet

Unlike many world leaders, Mbeki appears to be at ease with the Internet and willing to quote from it. For instance, in a column 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, 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 it in these terms. His views on AIDS (see below) were supported by Internet searching which led him to so-called "AIDS dissident" websites; in this case, Mbeki's use of the Internet was roundly criticised and even ridiculed by opponents.

Controversies in Zimbabwe

Due to South Africa's proximity, strong trade links, and similar struggle credentials, South Africa is in a unique, and possibly solitary, position to influence politics in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe's economic slide since 2000 has been a matter of increasing concern to Britain (as the former colonial power) and other donors to that country, and high-ranking diplomatic visits to South Africa have repeatedly attempted to persuade Mbeki to take a harder line with his once-comrade, Robert Mugabe, over violent attacks on political opponents and opposition movements, takeovers of private farms by groups of Mugabe-allied war veterans, freedom of the press, and independence of the judiciary.

To the concern of many, Mbeki has never publicly criticised Mugabe's policies - preferring 'quiet diplomacy' rather than 'megaphone diplomacy', his term for the West's increasingly forthright condemnation of Mugabe's rule.

To quote Mbeki - The point really about all this from our perspective has been that the critical role we should play is to assist the Zimbabweans to find each other, really to agree among themselves about the political, economic, social, other solutions that their country needs. We could have stepped aside from that task and then shouted, and that would be the end of our contribution...They would shout back at us and that would be the end of the story. I'm actually the only head of government that I know anywhere in the world who has actually gone to Zimbabwe and spoken publicly very critically of the things that they are doing.

2002 Presidential elections

Mugabe faced a critical presidential election in 2002. The runup was shadowed by a difficult decision to suspend Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth. The full meeting of the Commonwealth had failed in a consensus to decide on the issue, and they tasked the previous, present (at the time), and future leaders of Commonwealth - (respectively President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, John Howard of Australia, and Mbeki of South Africa) to come to a consensus between them over the issue. On March 20, 2002 (10 days after the elections, which Mugabe won) Howard announced that they had agreed to suspend Zimbabwe for a year.

2005 parliamentary elections

In the face of recent passage of laws restricting public assembly and freedom of the media, muzzling campaigning by the MDC for the 2005 Zimbabwe parliamentary elections, President Mbeki was quoted as saying: I have no reason to think that anything will happen … that anybody in Zimbabwe will act in a way that will militate against the elections being free and fair. [ ...] As far as I know, things like an independent electoral commission, access to the public media, the absence of violence and intimidation … those matters have been addressed.

Current deputy-president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka (Minerals and Energy Minister at that time) led the largest foreign observer mission to oversee the elections. That observer mission congratulated the people of Zimbabwe for holding a peaceful, credible and well-mannered election which reflects the will of the people.

The elections were widely denounced and many who accused Zanu-PF of massive and often violent intimidation, using food to buy votes, and large discrepancies in the tallying of votes.

Dialogue between Zanu-PF and MDC

Mbeki has been attempting to restore dialogue between Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change in the face of denials from both parties. A fact-finding mission in 2004 by Congress of South African Trade Unions to Zimbabwe led to their widely-publicised deportation back to South Africa which reopened the debate, even within the ANC, as to whether Mbeki's policy of 'quiet diplomacy' is constructive.

On February 5 2006 Mbeki said in an interview with SABC television that Zimbabwe had missed a chance to resolve its political crisis in 2004 when secret talks to agree on a new constitution ended in failure. He claimed that he saw a copy of a new constitution signed by all parties. The job of promoting dialogue between the ruling party and the opposition was likely made more difficult by divisions within the MDC, splits to which the president alluded when he stated that the MDC were "sorting themselves out." In turn, the MDC unanimously rejected this assertion. MDC secretary general Welshman Ncube said "We never gave Mbeki a draft constitution - unless it was ZANU PF which did that. Mbeki has to tell the world what he was really talking about."

There were reports in May 2007 that Mbeki had been partisan and taken sides with Zanu-PF in his role as mediator. He had given pre-conditions to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change before the dialogue could resume while giving no conditions given to the government side. He has asked that the MDC be required to accept and recognize that Robert Mugabe was the president of Zimbabwe and that he won the 2002 elections despite the fact that they were fraudulent.

Business response

On January 10, 2006, businessman Warren Clewlow, who serves on the boards of four of the top 10 listed companies in SA, including Old Mutual, Sasol, Nedbank and Barloworld, said that government should stop its unsuccessful behind-the-scenes attempts to resolve the Zimbabwean crisis and start vociferously condemning what was happening in that country. Clewlow's sentiments, a clear indicator that the private sector is getting increasingly impatient with government's "quiet diplomacy" policy on Zimbabwe, were echoed by Business Unity SA (Busa), the umbrella body for all business organisations in the country.

As the company's chairman, he said in Barloworld's latest annual report that SA's efforts to date were fruitless and that the only means for a solution was for SA "to lead from the front. Our role and responsibility is not just to promote discussion... Our aim must be to achieve meaningful and sustainable change."

Position on Mugabe

Mbeki has been criticized for having failed to exert pressure on Mr Mugabe to relinquish power. He rejected calls in May 2007 for tough action against Zimbabwe ahead of a visit by the UK Prime Minister at the time Tony Blair.He told on July 29 2007 that Zimbabwe elections in March 2008 must be 'free and fair'.

Controversies

AIDS

Thabo Mbeki with George W. Bush

See also: AIDS reappraisal

Mbeki's views on the causes and treatment of AIDS have also been criticised. Most notably in April 2000 he defended a small group of dissident scientists who claim that AIDS is not caused by HIV. His government was applauded by AIDS activists for its successful legal defence against action brought by transnational pharmaceutical companies in April 2001 of a law that would allow cheaper locally-produced medicines. But since then, he and his administration have been repeatedly accused of failing to respond adequately to the epidemic. Current estimates suggest that 5.3 million South Africans have HIV.

AIDS advocates, particularly the Treatment Action Campaign and its allies, campaigned for a program to use anti-retroviral medicines to prevent HIV transmission from mother to child; and then for an overall national treatment program for AIDS that included antiretrovirals. Until 2003, South Africans with HIV who used the public sector health system could get treatment for opportunistic infections they suffered because of their weakened immune systems, but could not get antiretrovirals, designed to specifically target HIV.

In the current South African system, the Cabinet can override the President. 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. But the Health Ministry is still headed by Dr. Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who has served as health minister since June 1999, and has promoted nutritional approaches to AIDS while highlighting potential toxicities of antiretroviral drugs. This led 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 criticise Mbeki's AIDS policies.

It is unclear what led Mbeki to hold unorthodox views of AIDS. While serving as deputy President, AIDS was in his portfolio, and he customarily wore a red ribbon while promoting more conventional views. He did preside over a controversial and brief embrace of a South African experimental drug called Virodene which later proved to be ineffective; the episode appeared to have increased his skepticism about the scientific consensus that quickly condemned the drug.

The largest shift in his views apparently came after he assumed the Presidency. He described AIDS as a "disease of poverty", arguing that political attention should be directed to poverty generally rather than AIDS specifically. 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 characterisation of Africans as promiscuous and Africa as a continent of disease and hopelessness. For example, speaking to a group of university students in 2001, he struck out against what he viewed as the racism underlying how many in the West characterised AIDS in Africa:

Convinced that we are but natural-born, promiscuous carriers of germs, unique in the world, they proclaim that our continent is doomed to an inevitable mortal end because of our unconquerable devotion to the sin of lust.

Additionally, his views dovetailed with some broader themes in African politics. 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 mainly by Western pharmaceutical companies. The history of malicious and manipulative health policies of the colonial and apartheid governments in Africa, including biological warfare programs set up by the apartheid state, also help to fuel views that the scientific discourse of AIDS might be a tool for European and American political, cultural or economic agendas.

Whatever Mbeki's views of AIDS are now, ANC rules and his own commitment to the idea of party discipline mean that he cannot publicly criticise the current government policy that HIV causes AIDS and that antiretrovirals should be provided. Some critics of Mbeki assert that his personal views are not in accordance with this policy and still influence AIDS policy behind the scenes, a charge which his office regularly denies.

However, in a recently published biography "Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred" the author describes how the president contacted the author earlier this year to ask whether he had seen a 100-page paper secretly authored by Mr Mbeki and distributed anonymously among the ANC leadership six years ago. This paper compared Aids scientists to latter-day Nazi concentration camp doctors and portrayed black people who accepted orthodox Aids science as "self-repressed" victims of a slave mentality. It describes the "HIV/Aids thesis" as entrenched in "centuries-old white racist beliefs and concepts about Africans". Mr Gevisser also describes how the president's view of the disease was shaped by an obsession with race, the legacy of colonialism and "sexual shame".

Crime

In January 2007 Mbeki said that fears of crime were exaggerated

Debate with Archbishop Tutu

In 2004 the Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, Desmond Tutu, criticised President Mbeki for surrounding himself with "yes-men", not doing enough to improve the position of the poor and for promoting economic policies that only benefited a small black elite. He also accused Mbeki and the ANC of suppressing public debate. Mbeki responded that Tutu had never been an ANC member and defended the debates that took place within ANC branches and other public forums. He also asserted his belief in the value of democratic discussion by quoting the Chinese slogan "let a hundred flowers bloom", referring to the brief Hundred Flowers Campaign within the Chinese Communist Party in 1956-57.

The ANC Today newsletter featured several analyses of the debate, written by Mbeki and the ANC. The latter suggested that Tutu was an "icon" of "white elites", thereby suggesting that his political importance was overblown by the media; and while the article took pains to say that Tutu had not sought this status, it was described in the press as a particularly pointed and personal critique of Tutu. Tutu responded that he would pray for Mbeki as he had prayed for the officials of the apartheid government.

Mbeki, Zuma, and succession

Mbeki was praised abroad and by some South Africans, but criticised by many ANC members, over his 2005 firing of the deputy president, Jacob Zuma, after Zuma was implicated in a corruption scandal. In October 2005, a few Zuma supporters burned T-shirts portraying Mbeki's picture at a protest, inspiring condemnation from the ANC leadership. In late 2005, Zuma faced new rape charges, which dimmed his political prospects. But his supporters suggested that there was a Mbeki-led political conspiracy against him. There was visible split between Zuma's supporters and Mbeki's allies in the ANC.

Mbeki has been accused of hoping for a constitutional change which would allow a third term in office, but he and other senior ANC members have always denied this. In February 2006, Mbeki told the SABC that he and the ANC have no intention to change the Constitution. He stated, "By the end of the 2009, I will have been in a senior position in government for 15 years. I think that's too long." But he has no clear successor within the ANC, and the battle for this position is likely to be intense. The Zuma saga can be seen as an early round of a political drama which has already begun, at the start of Mbeki's second term.

See also

• List of national leaders

External links

• South African Government profile on Thabo Mbeki
• Mbeki: ANC official page His party's collection of Mbeki documents, biography and portrait.
• "Thabo Mbeki - a man of two faces" "The Economist" magazine profiles Mbeki. pay/member link
• The Guardian Profile The Guardian (UK) profiles Mbeki.
• A critical Zimbabwean view. Editorial comment from Zimbabwean website.
• AFP Profile Thabo Mbeki as seen by Agence France-Presse.
• "Today it feels good to be an African" - Thabo Mbeki, Cape Town, 8 May 1996
• No Shacks a project associated with Niall Mellon

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