The State of the South African Union

Last night Thabo Mbeki gave his much anticipated State of the Union Address (here is the text, courtesy of IOL). It was a rainy night in Cape Town, but Mbeki's address, which had been the source of much speculation and not a little concern, went off largely without a hitch. The President, who has been criticized across a whole cross-section of society for a host of sins real and imagined despite favorable ratings of as much as 70% from South Africans, acquitted himself well. Pundits and critics wondered whether Mbeki would elide the pervasive crime issue. He did not. As expected from a politician with formal training in economics, Mbeki also addressed the country's economic growth. One would never know from the sometimes shrill and always pessimistic tenor of some of Mbeki's critics, but South Africa has actually experienced almost 100 straight months of economic growth, which, though oftentimes modest, still ought to be the envy of almost every country on earth.

Crime is a dire matter. AIDS continues to haunt the country and the region. Poverty and other legacies of apartheid will continue to vex South Africa's leaders for the foreseeable future. And yet I still maintain a profound sense of optimism, even if that optimism is not blind.

Thabo Mbeki is a fascinating figure if for no other reason than that he is not Nelson Mandela. South Africa has gone through a successful transition from apartheid to resistance leadership. Though Mbeki was every bit a resistance figure himself, albeit in exile in England and thus without the romance attached to Mandela's "Robben Island University" cohort, in many ways he is the country's first post-resistance leader. Mandela's brilliant move to serve just one term, instantly bequesting unto his nation yet another gift, a rejection of the Big Man that has so terrorized much of the rest of the continent, proved a dual-edged sword for Mbeki. For Mbeki is not a God among men.

Mbeki reminds me a bit of Harry S. Truman in some small (and merely suggestive) ways. While not the humble, plain-spoken sort that Truman was, and while he operates in a vastly different context of history and his nation's political development, Mbeki nonetheless shares one thing in common with the man from Missouri: Both operate(d) under a shadow. FDR's shadow, as William Leuchtenburg and Alonzo Hamby have both so ably shown, was so overwhelming that it provided the prevailing paradigm under which American politicians operated for half a century. Mandela's shadow might prove to be even more lasting. Shadows of Gods tend to be. One wonders if, also like Truman, Mbeki will be more appreciated by historians than he is by many of the intelligentsia today. Certainly Mbeki is more popular than Truman was throughout most of his tenure, but at the same time, South African politics are dramatically different than those under which Truman operated in the 1940s. Nonetheless, both men were almost destined to look smaller than their predecessor. Truman emerged to become a significant historical figure in his own right. Might Mbeki end up playing a similar historical role?

Hmmm, In The Shadow of Madiba has a nice ring to it, does it not? I think I have a future book project.

The South African Succession and Mbeki's Future

As someone who on more than one occasion has expressed concern with the idea of Thabo Mbeki and the African National Congress amending the South African constitution to allow Mbeki to serve a third term in office, I am relieved to see The Mail & Guardian speculate about Mbeki's future and thus the ANC succession battle. Both of these stories are signs that South Africa will continue on the right path.

as for Mbeki's future, there is always the possibility that he will enter the private sector -- his background is in economics -- but given that Mbeki has been such an ardent proponent of his own vision of Pan-Africanism, his "African Renaissance," I tend to think that he'll look toward becoming involved in leadership in regional or continent-wide institutions. My initial guess is that leadership of the African Union will hold a great deal of appeal for him, especially if somehow resolutions to the crises in the Sudan, Somalia, and the perpetual state of chaos that is the Congo emerge between now and 2009 and he can begin to bring to fruition some of his visions for Africa.

As for the succession battle to come, Tokyo Sexwale, a prominent businessman and former stalwart in the anti-apartheid struggle, seems to have the support of a number of prominent South Africans. there is speculation that among these might be Nelson Mandela, which, if true would almost assuredly provide heft to Sexwale's ambitions. If the private sector is going to provide the next South African president, I have always had high hopes for Cyril Ramaphosa, who also went into the private sector to make his much-deserved fortunes after playing such a vital role in the negotiations that led to liberation.

2007 will be one of the most fascinating years in South African politics since 1994 largely because in December the ANC will (I hope) pick a new party leader, who then almost assuredly will become the next president in 2009. As long as that "new leader" does not end up being Thabo Mbeki, I will continue to have faith in South Africa's future.

Mugabe: Lessons For Mbeki?

There are rumblings from Zimbabwe that the country's megalomaniacal president, Robert Mugabe, might extend his tenure in office to 2010 (he is scheduled to step down in 2008) if factions within the ruling party, ZANU-PF approve another constitutional change. Following up on what I wrote a week or so ago, I really do hope Thabo Mbeki is watching and understands what a monumentally bad idea tinkering with the constitution to extend a presidents term in office is, especially in Africa with its history of self-anointed presidents-for-life. When in doubt, look at what Mugabe does and strongly consider doing the opposite.

Foreshadowing a Mistake?

The Eastern Cape African National Congress, the largest single provincial voting bloc for the party, has passed a resolution calling for Thabo Mbeki to run for a third term as head of the party. While this is technically different from embracing a third term as South Africa's president, it sets in motion the potential for Mbeki to follow in the footsteps of so many African leaders in the last half century.

In February of this year I wrote about this possibility. I was wary then:

This is a colossally, monumentally, stupidly bad idea. To be fair to Mbeki and the ANC, this is not an idea that comes from them, but I do hope this is not Mbeki's way of floating a trial balloon. If it is, I hope that it bursts instantly. One of post-colonial Africa's curses has been Big Man Syndrome, whereby leaders, almost always from the independence era, believe that they are indispensible and thus refuse to yield power or else engage in chicanery and heavy-handedness to change or manipulate the Constitution and thus make their naked grab for power "legal" in the narrowest sense.

In 1940 a Republican slogan was "Washington wouldn't, Grant couldn't, Roosevelt shouldn't" in opposing a third term for FDR. Whatever the merits of re-opening the discussion of the two-term limit in American presidency -- and, speaking as a historian, I am an ardent supporter of all of FDR's terms -- given the circumstances in Sub-Saharan Africa, let us get a new slogan going: "Mandela wouldn't, Mbeki shouldn't."

I am even more wary now.

(This issue also emerged in the comments of another, longer entry on South African politics from this past June.)

I should note that Mbeki has continued to disavow any interest in a third term as head of state, which would in any case require a constitutional amendment. But this prospect helps elucidate why even those of us who support the ANC have always been wary of the ANC capturing 2/3 of the votes in parliament, which would allow them, if no one broke ranks, to change the constitution unilaterally if they so chose. The liberation movement has worked too hard to become the governing party only to see things go the way of oligarchy and presidencies for life. That prospect is a long way off, but the EC's recent decision at least points the way toward an inglorious future.

The fact that this motion comes from the Eastern Cape is significant as well. During the resistance struggle the eastern Cape region (it was not then its own province) provided the backdrop for some of the most intense moments of struggle. The region's leadership set much of the agenda for "making South Africa ungovernable" in the 1980s. Steve Biko and Matthew Goniwe are just two of the martyrs who emerged from the region as the result of their willingness to confront the apartheid state. The eastern Cape has a sacred place in the history of the fight against oppression. Let us hope that the same region does not prove to be the point of origination for folly in the next stage of South Africa's development.

A Monumentally Bad Idea

A fringe ally of the African National Congress, the South African National Civics Organisation (Sanco), has started making noise about pushing for a third term for Thabo Mbeki. This is a colossally, monumentally, stupidly bad idea. To be fair to Mbeki and the ANC, this is not an idea that comes from them, but I do hope this is not Mbeki's way of floating a trial balloon. If it is, I hope that it bursts instantly. One of post-colonial Africa's curses has been Big Man Syndrome, whereby leaders, almost always from the independence era, believe that they are indispensible and thus refuse to yield power or else engage in chicanery and heavy-handedness to change or manipulate the Constitution and thus make their naked grab for power "legal" in the narrowest sense.

In 1940 a Republican slogan was "Washington wouldn't, Grant couldn't, Roosevelt shouldn't" in opposing a third term for FDR. Whatever the merits of re-opening the discussion of the two-term limit in American presidency -- and, speaking as a historian, I am an ardent supporter of all of FDR's terms -- given the circumstances in Sub-Saharan Africa, let us get a new slogan going: "Mandela wouldn't, Mbeki shouldn't."