Mbeki: A squandered legacy

by Editor · April 23, 2008

When South Africa�s parliament adopted the country�s exemplary Constitution in May 1996, then-Deputy President Thabo Mbeki delivered his powerful �I am an African� speech, an epochal and epic exposition which caused many to invest much hope in the man who would become the nation�s next president.

Mr Mbeki�s speech, and his dream of an African Renaissance, set him apart as a visionary who would not only articulate Africa�s aspirations, but also strive to meet them.

Indeed, Mr Mbeki has done a lot of good since ascending to South Africa�s presidency in 1999 (as he did during the Mandela presidency). He was a significant force in Africa�s drive to democratise, for example.

At home, democracy and its institutions have remained generally strong. For this Mr Mbeki merits credit. Under his watch, the economy has grown�albeit at a price to the poor and on the back of the unavailing trickle-down theory of economics.

The Mbeki governments have not performed well on other issues, such as crime, housing, education, land reform and corruption. And yet even such grim shortcomings might not have diminished Mr Mbeki�s legacy.

Domestically, Mr Mbeki�s reputation will always be linked to his extraordinary failure to address the HIV/Aids crisis.

Faced with the greatest threat to this region�s future�socially, economically and politically�Mr Mbeki shielded himself behind a profusion of discredited quackery in place of taking timely and concrete action. Many South Africans will find it difficult to pardon his intractable heedlessness.

Mr Mbeki�s humiliating defeat to Jacob Zuma in the election for the presidency of the African National Congress in December revealed an unloved leader even within his own party. Only a precipitous decline in South Africa�s fortunes might give rise to a general nostalgia for the Mbeki presidency.

And yet Mr Mbeki might have been looking forward to his retirement from the presidency next year as an esteemed African statesman. Even this seems unlikely now.

Mr Mbeki�s stature as a statesman of high repute mutated into one of international buffoon when he declared, against all glaringly obvious evidence, that there was no crisis in Zimbabwe following the post-election shenanigans by the regime of Zimbabwe�s Robert Mugabe.

How could a leader who was pivotal in the adoption of South Africa�s resplendent Constitution countenance the conspicuous rape of democracy in Zimbabwe? How could a man who offered his youth, indeed much of his life, for the struggle against the inequity of apartheid acquiesce in gross injustice in another country? How could a man who professed his pride in being an African tolerate the actions of a regime which substantiates all the nasty prejudices about the continent? How could the leader of a democratic nation in good conscience embolden tyrants everywhere by cheerfully endorsing the unmitigated theft of Zimbabwe�s elections?

What happened to the son of �a nation that would not allow that fear of death, torture, imprisonment, exile or persecution should result in the perpetuation of injustice�?

Mr Mbeki has shed his credibility as a statesman. His legacy is shattered, at home and abroad.

This is a tragedy. It is a tragedy that the man who 12 years ago promised our parliament that �Africa reaffirms that she is continuing her rise from the ashes� has by his betrayal of Zimbabwe�s people shot down the Phoenix. It is a tragedy that history may well regard Mr Mbeki not as the great leader he might have been.