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Is Thabo Mbeki Africa's Saviour?

Is Thabo Mbeki Africa's Saviour?

Is ’s saviour?

GERRIT OLIVIER

An outstanding characteristic of South African president Thabo Mbeki’s leader- ship is his predilection for matters foreign over matters domestic. This prefer- ence seems to be a legacy of his many years serving as head of publicity and information for the exiled African National Congress. Since he took over the presidency from his illustrious predecessor, , foreign relations, particularly African and Third World causes, have been his main political pursuit. Following in the footsteps of the founding fathers of pan-Africanism— , W. E. B. du Bois, , , , and others—he dreams of a new Africa. However, while the original pan-Africanists sought the ‘political kingdom’ for Africa, Mbeki casts himself as a neo-pan-Africanist, seeking the ‘economic kingdom’ for the ailing continent. He articulates the idea of building a new, progressive and modernized Africa, an Africa relieved from poverty, backwardness and political decay, and swimming with the main current of world politics and economics. He paints his foreign policy with a broad brush and his vision for Africa is grandi- loquent, setting himself an agenda which is simultaneously ambitious, mission- ary and somewhat romantic, but daunting in complexity and magnitude. Although Mbeki’s philosophical approach to international relations is gener- ally liberal and universal, he defines his primary goals mainly in terms of the ideology of his neo-pan-Africanism and the aspirations of developing countries in the southern hemisphere, with issues such as poverty, debt relief, racism and underdevelopment high on his foreign policy agenda. All the main strands of his foreign policy join together in his grand vision for Africa. He introduced and popularized the idealistic notion of an ‘’; he is the seminal thinker behind, and principal author and articulator of, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), the foremost African peacemaker and multi- lateralist, a founding father and first chairman of the new (replacing the anachronistic Organization of African Unity), a main player and outgoing chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement, Africa’s strongest voice in the globalization debate between the rich North and the poor South, and the super-diplomat who has succeeded in placing Africa high on the global agenda.

International Affairs 79,  () ‒ 815

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Mbeki’s leadership style: a unique mixture, but is it potent enough? ’s celebrated peaceful transformation from to democracy in 1994, and notably Nelson Mandela’s role in South Africa’s new beginning, gave Mbeki the best possible launch pad from which to shape and direct South Africa’s foreign policy. Knowing that South Africa had become a very special country in the eyes of the world after its peaceful transformation from apartheid to democracy, Mbeki used his presidency and diplomatic skills to elevate him- self as Africa’s strongest and most eloquent voice in world politics. At the same time he relegated South Africa’s foreign policy almost to the status of an adjunct of his grander visions and pursuits in Africa and the rest of the developing world. His role perception, being revisionist, liberal and universal, led him to deal mostly with big ideas and big issues; international organizations like the United Nations and its specialized agencies, the Non-Aligned Movement, the African Union, the World Economic Forum, and meetings of the G-8 (industrialized nations) have served as favourite platforms for his diplomatic pursuits. While Mbeki is no narrow-minded dyed-in-the-wool ideologue, nor a leader corrupted by power in the traditional postcolonial African mode, his effective- ness as a democratic leader is impaired by his lack of strategic adaptability (especially when policies backfire, as on HIV/AIDS and ), certain personal idiosyncrasies and contradictions in his leadership style. These qualities render him a remote leader from the point of view of the masses and something of an impenetrable enigma to his interlocutors and the media. Like a prophet, he believes in grand plans and total solutions for Africa, creating enormous expectations, and raising questions about risks and consequences of over- extension and failure to deliver. As Henry Kissinger has noted: ‘The prophet represents an era of exaltation, of great upheavals, of vast accomplishments, but also of enormous disasters.’1 However, there is also another Mbeki: this is Mbeki the prudent diplomat-cum-bureaucrat who involves himself with administrative minutiae, who is a master of rhetorical obfuscation, who would at the same time criticize and embrace outdated political orthodoxy in Africa, and who prefers to settle for weak compromises and procrastinate rather than challenge or overrule aberrant fellow African leaders. Even so, although Mbeki probably does not fall in the same esoteric category as charismatic African leaders like Nelson Mandela, Kwame Nkrumah or Leopold Senghor, he enjoys considerable standing abroad. After three years as South African president, he has established himself as South Africa’s and Africa’s Überdiplomat and one-man foreign policy think-tank, as an indefatigable international globetrotter who enjoys easy access to all main world leaders, and as an African leader whose worldview and role perception (reminiscent of a former South African prime minister, General Jan Christiaan Smuts) far exceed the relative global power status of his country.

1 Henry A. Kissinger, American foreign policy: three essays (: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969), p. 46.

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Since assuming power, Mbeki has mellowed from being a left-wing activist in the ANC’s struggle against apartheid into a more moderate left-of-centre politician. Under his guidance and influence the ANC as ruling party modified its foreign policy credo from aspirational moralism to operational pragmatism as the idealism of the ANC-in-struggle made way for a more orthodox and con- servative approach by the ANC-in-government. What is particularly notable about this new policy is its moral neutrality and even indifference with regard to intra-African politics. It meticulously respects the sovereignty of African countries, viewing judgement on their human rights records, however odious and harmful, as unwarranted interference in their domestic affairs. For example, Mbeki got himself deeply involved in the anti-war campaign in the –Iraq confrontation, tried to play a mediator role in Palestine, and helped to bring peace to Africa’s various conflict zones; but as far as the Zimbabwe fiasco in South Africa’s own backyard, and the many cases of blatant autocratic mismanagement and undemocratic behaviour elsewhere in Africa, are con- cerned, he absolves himself of responsibility simply by declaring ‘we claim no right to impose our will on any independent country.’2 Out of fear of being isolated and sidelined as a solitary crusader for moral justice, Mbeki prefers the multilateral route on human rights issues. In the African context his moral stance is primarily dictated by a pan-Africanist political correctness, in its turn a derivative of pan-African solidarity, unity and fraternity. Outside Africa, coun- tries with abominable human rights records— and China, for instance— get the same benevolent treatment because they supported the ANC’s struggle against apartheid. These leadership traits render Mbeki’s foreign policy a complicated and some- times contradictory mixture of ideology, idealism and pragmatism: a policy characterized by grand opening moves, but one that for the most part founders on the delivery side. At times his ideological preferences seem to override South Africa’s core economic and security national interests, or threaten the future of his own brainchildren, such as NEPAD and the African renaissance. With great dexterity, he shifts smoothly from one paradigm to another. His idealism leads him to champion noble causes like NEPAD, the African renaissance, the elimin- ation of African poverty and the restoration of African pride, and to proclaim the virtues of good governance, human rights and democracy in Africa. In a speech at Chantilly, USA, in 1997, when he was still deputy president, he said that in order for Africa to reach its goals, the present generation ‘must resist all tyranny, oppose all attempts to deny liberty, to resort to demagoguery, repulse the temptation to describe African life as the ability to live on charity’.3 Launching the AU summit in in 2002, he again exhorted: ‘through our actions, let us proclaim to the world that … Africa is a continent of democracy, a continent of democratic institutions and culture—indeed a continent of good

2 Business Day (), 19 Feb. 2003, p. 1. 3 Deputy President Thabo Mbeki’s address to the Corporate Council Summit on ‘Attracting capital to Africa’, Chantilly, Virginia, USA, April 1997.

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governance, where the people participate and the rule of law is upheld.’4 This moral aspirationalism runs like a thread through many of Mbeki’s speeches, particularly those he has made before international audiences and potential foreign investors. But how serious or committed is he to making these things happen? Most of the time, when he has to make the hard choice, his ideological predilections take over, leading him to act with moral indifference and to stand by ‘permanent friends’ of the ilk of Mugabe, Castro and Qadhafi. One prominent example of Mbeki’s fluctuating attitude is his volte-face on NEPAD’s voluntary African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM). This mechan- ism was originally designed to encourage African countries ‘to consider seriously the impact of domestic policies, not only on internal political stability and economic growth, but also on neighbouring countries’.5 Great expectations about Africa’s rehabilitation abounded when he and the co-authors of NEPAD proposed the APRM. It was seen as an important and rare admission by an African leader that the African house was not in order, and that something drastic should be done about it. The APRM mechanism was, therefore, roundly welcomed and acclaimed, particularly by the G8 countries, which saw it as an important paradigm change in African politics and as a crucial factor in the process of building a solid partnership with NEPAD. Unfortunately, this seems to be turning out to be yet another African false dawn. When his African peers baulked at the notion of an independent review of their political performance, Mbeki meekly backtracked and compromised. Through his deputy foreign minister it was stated that the APRM will ‘not review the political governance of African nations’ but only ‘monitor codes of economic and corporative governance’.6 The political function was duly referred to the newly formed African Union, which, according to Mbeki, ‘will promote democratic prin- ciples and institutions, popular participation, and good governance’.7 The word ‘promote’ conveys the notion that the APRM will probably also wither away as another toothless mechanism of African unity. A second example of Mbeki’s realist/idealist double-speak was his speech at the African Mining Indaba in on 12 February 2002. On this occasion he stated that national sovereignty should no longer serve as a barrier behind which African governments could hide and do what they liked, echoing Mandela’s earlier exhortation that ‘tyrants should not be allowed to shelter behind national sovereignty.’8 However, sensing that the vast majority of his African colleagues would probably disagree with him (for the simple reason that most of them were guilty of some or other form of undemocratic behaviour or

4 Sunday Times (Johannesburg), 14 July 2002. 5 ‘Declaration on democracy, political, economic and corporate governance: African Peer Review Mechanism’, in NEPAD at work: summary of NEPAD Action Plans (: NEPAD Secretariat, July 2002), p. 10. 6 Deputy South African Foreign Minister , Pretoria News (Pretoria), 29 Oct. 2002, p. 1. 7 Pretoria News (Pretoria), 31 Oct. 2002, p. 1 8 Stanley Uys and James Myburgh, ‘South Africa: Thabo Mbeki’s presidency—a profile’, Internationales Afrika-Forum 38: 3, 2002, p. 4.

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humanitarian malpractices) he never followed up this statement, which in effect came down to changing the ‘holy script’ of African unity and contradicting his own policy of ‘soft diplomacy’ towards Mugabe and other repressive African dictators. Even in his own party and government these moral sentiments cut little ice, as many of its members continued to hold Mugabe and his ZANU- Patriotic Front party in high esteem. For example, prominent ZANU-PF ministers were invited as special guests and were warmly applauded at the ANC national party conference in Stellenbosch early in 2003; Mbeki’s foreign minister and confidant, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, stated that as long as the ANC was in power, ‘Mugabe will never be condemned’; and ANC labour minister , after a visit to Zimbabwe, concluded that South Africa ‘had a lot to learn’ from Mugabe’s land reform programme.9

Afrocentrism and Euroscepticism Mbeki’s oscillation between idealism on the one hand and pragmatism and compromise on the other could be indicative of two things, in the main: a wavering style of leadership, and/or the inherently complicated nature of his political balancing act when dealing with the vicissitudes of African politics. His task of ‘saving Africa’ involves getting the backing of the industrialized nations for NEPAD, getting fellow African leaders on his side, protecting and pro- moting his status as leading articulator of Third World aspirations, and making sure that his domestic constituency remains loyal and supportive. Mbeki spends much of his time and energy courting the G8 countries, which he wants to bankroll NEPAD. So far, he has been quite successful in getting their attention; but the quid pro quo they expect for their donor support may be difficult for Africa to deliver. The message he gets from these governments is that Africa will be rewarded as and when it mends its ways. Sensitive as they are about the reaction of their own domestic constituencies to giving aid to undemo- cratic and repressive regimes far from home, and also being under pressure to perform in areas perceived as being more critical to their countries’ immediate welfare and security than Africa’s problems, they would like to see African govern- ments move beyond mere good intentions and convince them that NEPAD is not yet another begging device for donor support but would indeed help to promote democracy, good governance and human rights on the continent. At umpteen conferences and presentations Mbeki has been at pains to explain that NEPAD is different and unique, pointing out that it has a purely African (actually South African) origin and pedigree; is a departure from previous plans in the sense that it reflected a ‘new political will’ on the part of African leaders to embark upon good governance, free market principles, respect for human rights and the rule of law; and promotes a culture of empowerment and self-reliance. It also carries a lot of weight that South Africa, the most powerful nation on the continent, is

9 Business Day (Johannesburg), 13 Jan. 2003, p. 3.

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for the first time in the vanguard of a pan-African initiative, and has the other powerful sub-Saharan African nation, , also on board. But talk of a ‘new political will’ among African governments seems pre- mature and wishful thinking. The ball remains still very much in the court of Mbeki and his fellow NEPAD promoters to deliver on what they have promised. They still have to take the next steps to convince the industrialized nations that their plan is more than a catalogue of aspirations and ambitious wish-lists. In short, Mbeki and his African colleagues must deliver an Africa that is visibly abandoning its old ways, an Africa that is more democratic, internally stable, more efficient, more predictable and better governed. This linkage between support and performance presents a new situation to African countries, now deprived of the leverage they could exercise in the Cold War era to get aid in exchange for strategic or ideological support from either side of the Iron Curtain, irrespective of their domestic political practices. While Mbeki accepts the a priori importance of a new political and moral ethos for Africa, he demands that these principles be developed and applied by Africans themselves, and free from outside interference, prescriptions or conditions—an attitude fully under- standable against the background of Africa’s colonial past. However, what the world is waiting and hoping for is for Africa to make good on its own promises and to live up to what it professes. Until that happens, the onus of proof will still rest squarely on Africa’s shoulders. Once the nations of the continent have enshrined a universally legitimate ‘out of Africa’ ethical and moral political code in the charters of the African Union and NEPAD, they must abide by it, and not simply ignore it in deference to African unity and fraternity, as happened for more than 40 years under the regimes of the OAU and subregional African organizations such as the Southern African Development Community. Another aspect of his complicated leadership style is that Mbeki does things that aggravate relations with would-be NEPAD benefactors, ostensibly with the aim of enhancing his legitimacy as ‘Africa’s saviour’ and currying favour with his African peers. His self-proclaimed ,10 and the pejorative slant he attaches to , put some distance between him and Western leaders. The special relationship between him and UK prime minister seems to have cooled down because of his unstinting support for Zimbabwe’s president , and while his relations with and attitude towards the European Union and the United States are correct, even cordial, they are decidedly not warm or of a special kind. Western scepticism is further fuelled by Mbeki’s obsession with race and his propensity to play the race card to support his case,11

10 See Mbeki’s ‘’ speech in his ‘Statement on behalf of the ANC’ at the adoption of South Africa’s Constitution Bill, Parliament, Cape Town, 8 May 1996. Quoted in Adenauer Foundation Occasional Paper (Johannesburg, May 1998), p. 5. 11 Race is a recurring theme in Mbeki’s political philosophy. He once described South Africa as a country with two nations, black and white. See, inter alia, Uys and Myburgh, ‘South Africa: Thabo Mbeki’s presidency’, p. 16. In response to criticism of the Commonwealth’s decision not to suspend Zimbabwe ahead of the March 2000 presidential poll (but rather to wait for the troika, Australia, South Africa and Nigeria, to report), he lashed out against ‘elements’ in Commonwealth and international media who were inspired by ‘’: Sunday Independent (Johannesburg), 10 March 2002.

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his profoundly controversial and contradictory policies and strategies on the HIV/AIDS pandemic in South Africa, his Zimbabwe policy, and his friendship with, and support for, Western bêtes noires of the ilk of Mugabe, Qadhafi and Castro. Mbeki wants support from the developed nations, but mostly on his terms, arguing that in spite of their misgivings about his choice of ideology, policies and friends, it is still in their interest, and certainly their moral obligation, to support any reasonable Africa-directed effort to overcome the continent’s serious problems.12 What he wants from them are concrete deeds rather than lip-service and palliatives. And his case appears to be quite strong. Particularly hurtful are practices pursued by developed countries that exacerbate existing inequalities with the developing world: trade barriers and massive subsidies make it difficult for African products, especially agricultural products to enter western markets; development aid to Africa has halved between 1989 and 1990 (from US$24.4 billion to $12.2 billion p.a.), and private sector investment in Africa is about 1 per cent of global investment. Western indifference was only too clear, for example, when only two Western leaders (Italian and Spanish) bothered to attend the critical UN World Food Summit in Rome in July 2002, where strategies were discussed to halve world hunger by 2015, and also when US President George W. Bush refused to attend the 2003 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. These signals of indifference cast doubt on the practical application of the honey-toned promises for support of NEPAD contained in the Action Plan of the 2002 Kananaskis G8 summit. The fact that this plan merely confirms the Monterrey commitment of US$12 billion a year by 2006 (falling far short of the US$64 billion per annum asked by the African promoters of NEPAD) points to a wide gap between G8 intentions and actual delivery.

Africa needs a saviour, but does Thabo Mbeki fit the role? Getting support for NEPAD from the developed nations is but one aspect of Mbeki’s difficult diplomatic agenda. Equally important for him is to get the sup- port and acquiescence of the present African leadership. And this is not proving to be easy. NEPAD’s grand design, complex procedures and labyrinthine administrative underpinnings may be the fulfilment of a bureaucrat’s dream, but could very well turn into a politician’s nightmare. Not wanting South Africa to

12 Although Mbeki tries to project Africa’s plight as unique in the world, this is not the case. In Asia, according to a recent report, 43.5 per cent of the world’s population (in countries including India, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan) live on less than US$1 per day and in social conditions, particularly in respect of health and education, that are perhaps the worst in the world. Other regions and countries could also be added to this list. In fact, according to the World Bank, not only do half the world’s population live on less than $2 a day but a fifth, that is 1.2 billion people, have less than $1 a day. But what they do not have, of course, is a NEPAD or an Mbeki to plead their case— and, as the idiom has it, ‘it’s the squeaky wheel that gets the oil.’

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be regarded as a regional bully or hegemon,13 and fearful of being isolated as a lone crusader, Mbeki treads warily and relies mainly on his diplomatic powers of persuasion and multilateral diplomacy. He has to watch his political back all the time, because below the veneer of African unity there is a strong residue of inflated egos and petty jealousies among leaders, making consensus-building a very complicated exercise. Most conspicuous among these egocentric com- petitors is the Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi, who has characterized NEPAD as ‘a project of former colonizers and racists’.14 Moreover, in the pecking order of African leadership, Mbeki figures as a relative junior. He must, therefore, play his diplomatic cards extremely carefully, while at the same time trying to remain the captain of his own initiative. To overcome some of these obstacles he builds his Africa policy on the twin pillars of coalition and consensus, while his diplomatic sales pitch is to depict NEPAD as the be-all and end-all for Africa, with failure too ghastly to contemplate. As a pan-Africanist, Mbeki’s key strategy is obviously to get the rest of Africa behind him as he moves forward. But this could be a strategic misjudgement, for the simple reason that the rest of Africa is unlikely to fall in behind him en masse.15 Success would probably come more easily were he to lead from the front and create a bandwagon effect. If he took this route, various factors would count in his favour. First, his legitimacy as a crusader for the redress of injustice towards the developing world is supported by the fact that issues such as poverty in Africa and uneven globalization have gained high international saliency since the end of the Cold War. His cause is greatly helped by the industrialized nations’ new awareness of and concern about the impact of African poverty on global stability (20 per cent of the world’s population are Africans, and half of them, about 350 million, live on less than on US$1 per day), as well as their uneasiness about radical resistance against the inequities of globalization and . As stated in article 65 of NEPAD, ‘the collapse of more African states poses a threat not only to Africans, but also to global peace and security. For industrialized countries, development in Africa will reduce the level of global social exclusion and mitigate a major potential source of global social instability.’

13 Mbeki refuses to use South Africa’s superior status as a regional power as a diplomatic tool to achieve national and regional objectives, or to translate this power into more of a strategic asset or instrument of foreign policy in Africa—for instance, to establish a geopolitical sphere of strategic influence where the country could act legitimately in pursuit of its own national interests. Even in situations where South Africa’s national interests are deeply harmed—in particular, the case of Zimbabwe—Mbeki refuses to use anything but ‘soft diplomacy’ or to act without broader African consultation and support. (London, 10 May 2003) depicts this approach as the ‘Mbeki doctrine’ and characterizes it thus: ‘South Africa cannot impose its will on others, but it can help to deal with instability in African countries by offering its resources and its leadership to bring rival groups together, and keep things calm until an election is held.’ This sounds like a rather naïve theory which ignores the ugly consequences of pandering to and rewarding dictators of Mugabe’s ilk, legitimizing rigged elections (recently in Nigeria, Zimbabwe and ) and turning a blind eye to abuses of human rights and the devastating social and security impact of economic decay. 14 Sunday Times (Johannesburg), 16 June 2002. 15 NEPAD (previously called the Millennium Partnership for the African Recovery Programme, or MAP) is itself the product of compromise, after the Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade came up with his own ‘Omega Plan’.

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Second, Mbeki is the leader of Africa’s strongest, most democratic and most developed state, and much of his diplomatic clout is derived from this fact. But at the same time it is also true that South African diplomacy lacks both the thrust and the quality to translate South Africa’s soft and hard power capabilities into concrete results, as the case of Zimbabwe so clearly shows. Mbeki’s unwillingness or perhaps inability to take a strong and principled stand against Mugabe, and his failure over more than two years to confront the time-bomb across the Limpopo, has left a long trail of damaging consequences for Zimbabwe, South Africa and the southern African region. It also places a big question mark against the effective- ness of Mbeki’s leadership in the African context. The most recent meeting (5 May 2003) between Mugabe and the AU troika (Mbeki and presidents of Nigeria and Bakili Muluzi of ) did signal a new element of urgency; but, like so many similar past exercises in ‘soft diplomacy’, this one also foundered because yet again Mugabe was not put under any significant pressure. As in the past, Mbeki again refused to use South Africa’s formidable array of diplo- matic instruments to exploit Zimbabwe’s vulnerability, its dependence on South Africa, to break the impasse. According to recent estimates the Zimbabwe fiasco cost the South African tax payers 15 billion Rands (over £1 billion) so far, but even this huge cost of ‘soft diplomacy’ seems to leave no impression on Mbeki. He was also conspicuously incapable, over more than two years, of impelling African organizations like the AU, NEPAD or the SADC to deal more effectively with the festering sore that Zimbabwe has become to Africa. Even so, we now do seem to be entering the final scene of the final act, as Zimbabweans will probably now try to get rid of Mugabe in their own way. The utter chaos and human misery in their country and the improbability of foreign intervention leave them no choice. If such a ‘regime change’ does take place, it is unlikely that any kudos and credit will go Mbeki’s way, as many Zimbabweans might feel that he has failed them in their darkest hour and that the entire catastrophe could probably have been avoided if he had made an early and decisive inter- vention to stop Mugabe and his cohorts from taking the country’s law into their own hands and plundering the economy. Third, although Mbeki lacks the personal charisma of a Nelson Mandela, he has other qualities that appeal to Western leaders and the world business com- munity: qualities that put him in a category apart from those leaders who had championed Africa’s cause before him. He enjoys ready access to Western leaders, who seem to take him seriously and listen to him with sympathy and understanding. Although not anti-globalist himself, he astutely exploits anti- globalist sentiments to promote his goals. His missionary commitment to Africa’s recovery seems to have convinced these leaders that he is someone they can do business with, that he is the best horse, probably the only horse, they can back in the present African context. Fourth, and a factor that must count strongly in his favour in the developed world, he is committed to market economic policies at home, and, contrary to many of his Third World compatriots, he sees globalization as a challenge rather

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than a threat. Western capitalists like the billionaire financier George Soros, Daimler-Benz’s Dieter Schremp and Unilever’s Niall FitzGerald act as his advisers and his itinerary regularly takes him to Western capitals.

Mbeki’s domestic support base: will it hold? Mbeki’s diplomatic balancing act is, therefore, a very demanding one. So far his success has perhaps been more apparent than real. As a marketing exercise the NEPAD concept received massive publicity at home and abroad, and with it, Africa’s plight gained new global prominence. But Mbeki’s real test lies in his ability to move beyond the relatively easy opening moves. Moreover, problems may start at the home front. The Achilles heel of Mbeki’s foreign policy is, no doubt, that it does little to improve the lot of the majority of South Africans, who remain stuck at the very bottom end of the economic ladder. He shows scant regard for the old dictum that ‘foreign policy starts at home.’ His argument seems to be that things will get better for South Africans once they get better for all Africans. While this may perhaps be true for the very long term, the poor masses in South Africa regard his choice of priorities with scepticism. Although the freedom and democracy that followed apartheid undoubtedly made South Africa a vastly better place, the plight of the poor actually got worse, with unemployment rising to over 30 per cent, crime continuing to escalate, foreign direct investment remaining disappointingly low, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic killing thousands of South Africans and affecting millions more. These domestic failures, crises and challenges do not seem to deter Mbeki from focusing primarily on the broader African and Third World issues. While he is more than ready to compromise with fellow African leaders on key issues, he is absolutely immovable on domestic issues once he has made up his mind. It does not seem to bother him that some of his domestic and foreign policies—on HIV/AIDS and Zimbabwe in particular—have reinforced foreign opinion that South Africa is ‘just another African country’, hence contributing to the coun- try’s failure to secure the much-needed international confidence and invest- ment support required to increase the welfare and social security of its people. Dissent and opposition in the leadership cadres of the (African National Congress, South African Communist Party and the Confederation of South African Trade Unions) do exist. Both the SACP and the powerful COSATU are strongly critical of the ideological rationale of NEPAD, believing that it is not in the workers’ interest and on the contrary is playing into the hands of capitalists: the United States and the former colonial powers. Knowing, of course, that his leadership is secure, and that the strength of the ANC remains virtually unchallenged, Mbeki shrugs off such dissent. He banks on the fact that black voters’ memories of the apartheid system are still too fresh for them to vote for any party but the one that led the struggle and brought liberation.

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From his formidable power base, Mbeki acts with the confidence and assurance of a leader who does not expect to be questioned on the correctness of his judgement, particularly on foreign affairs. NEPAD epitomizes his absolute authority: it is essentially a top-down process, conceptualized and formalized by him and presented to the people of South Africa as a virtual fait accompli. While he encourages debate with South Africa’s intellectual elite, this debate is not about the conceptualization and formation of policy, but rather about how the president’s policies could be made to work better and be propagated better. On NEPAD, he seldom bothers to explain to ordinary South Africans what is in it for them. He prefers to sell the project to foreign govern- ments, international conferences and elitist business-oriented audiences of the kind that usually assemble at conferences of the World Economic Forum. The majority of South Africans, most of whom are ANC supporters, may still tolerate Mbeki’s authoritarian foreign policy style and his choice of priorities. But for how long? Over time, critical unresolved domestic issues like HIV/ AIDS, unemployment, corruption, bureaucratic inefficiency and crime, and foreign issues like the Zimbabwe fiasco, are bound to erode the fervour of struggle politics and play into the hands of the far left (COSATU and SACP), who seems to be more in touch with the real needs of the poor and deprived masses. Moreover, civil society in South Africa is exceptionally alert, and circum- stances may arise when, confronted by a highly salient and important issue (as was recently demonstrated when it successfully revolted in a court case, led on its behalf by the Treatment Action Campaign, against his very controversial HIV/AIDS policy), it will measure Mbeki’s tireless diplomatic pursuit of global issues and mega-plans like NEPAD against his performance at home and the more urgent needs of the vast majority of ordinary South Africans, who may feel that charity starts at home. These signals are not reassuring, particularly to the largely white business and intellectual communities, who fear that South Africa might go the way of Zimbabwe, undergoing ‘Zanufication’, as some call it, should Mbeki and his power elite feel threatened by a black proletarian resistance or dwindling voter support. The speculation is that he might then be tempted to revert to the same ‘bread and circus’ politics, to win over the masses, as Mugabe did when he used the issue of white land ownership to stave off the challenge posed by and his Movement for Democratic Change.

NEPAD: new wine in old bottles? An outstanding aspect of Mbeki’s leadership is his ability to come up with sweeping new ideas and grand designs, both in domestic politics and in foreign relations. In foreign relations his idea of an African renaissance and NEPAD are the outstanding examples. NEPAD is projected and sold as something unique and original. But is it really? Now that the African renaissance idea has lost much of its initial urgency and flavour, the focus is squarely on NEPAD. Few people seem to be questioning its originality and sustainability. Perhaps this is a

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case of political amnesia. Indeed, Mbeki is at pains to convince his interlocutors that NEPAD is not putting new wine in old bottles, or hailing what will prove to be yet another African false dawn. ‘Rescue plans’ for Africa are, of course, nothing new,16 and although NEPAD’s pedigree and underlying philosophy may render it unique, its supporters and critics alike must be aware of the fate of previous optimistic macro-plans hatched, inter alia, by the United Nations, the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. These plans epitomized the alternation, since the 1960s, of brief epochs of optimism and long periods of pessimism about Africa’s future. For instance, in a rush of unqualified optimism the UN’s First and Second Development Decades for Africa, between 1960 and 1980, envisaged an annual growth rate target of 5–6 per cent. (NEPAD’s objective for the next 15 years is a whopping 7 per cent rise in annual GDP.) As it turned out, these rescue plans did nothing to prevent sub- Saharan African countries from remaining stuck in the low-income category of developing countries with an average growth per capita at the lowest end of all the regions in the world. Despite the estimated $350 billion of development aid sunk into Africa since , millions of Africans are worse off today than they or their families were in the 1960s. Fifty years ago, Africa accounted for 8 per cent of world exports; today the figure is just 2 per cent. A recent failure was the EU’s Lomé Convention, its free trade agreement with the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries, which after 30 years of privileged cooperation was superseded by the Cotonou agreement after it had became clear that the trade imbalances, foreign debts, internal poverty and external dependence of many of the ACP countries had actually got worse under the Lomé regime.

Which paradigm: grand design or incrementalism? The statesman, according to Henry Kissinger, ‘erect[s] fences against the possi- bility that even the most brilliant idea might prove abortive … to a statesman gradualism is the essence of stability; he represents an era of average perform- ance, of gradual change and slow construction.’17 Mbeki the ‘prophet’ seems to have neither the taste, patience nor inclination to pursue a prudent, incremental approach. Such an approach would probably have suggested that he should not put all his eggs in the NEPAD basket, and should have a plan B to fall back on: a less grandiose and sweeping scheme that was more viable, practical and certain of success. In the Southern African Development Community and the Southern African Customs Union he could have found readily available platforms and structures on which to build such a strategy. But these institutions, useful as they may be, are now withering away because of benign neglect in favour of the more grandiose NEPAD.

16 For a discussion of these plans, see P. Anyang’ Nyong’o, ‘From the Lagos Plan of Action to NEPAD: the dilemmas of progress in independent Africa’, unpublished paper presented to Renaissance South Africa outreach programme continental experts meeting, Pretoria, 17–19 June 2002. 17 Kissinger, American foreign policy, p. 47.

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The European Union is often cited as a model for the African Union. From this perspective, Mbeki might have thought of following Robert Schuman or Jean Monnet’s successful strategy of incremental integration as the best route towards achieving his goals. The problems that have faced European integration, particu- larly the sovereignty issue, are more deep-seated and much harder to overcome in Africa. Even so, Schuman counselled, ‘Europe will not be made all at once or according to a single plan. It will be built through concrete achievements.’18 Starting modestly with cooperation on coal and steel, European integration progressed to become the success story of our time. In sharp contrast with Schuman, Mbeki has opted for a single plan of epic proportions. In doing so, he has burdened himself with a daunting, if not impossible, agenda. Early success is vital if he is to take his domestic, African and Western constituencies with him. He realizes that he is creating high expectations without the certainty of delivery. At the World Economic Forum meeting in Durban in June 2002 he admitted the risk of failure when he said: ‘We dare not fail because failure would be a disaster that we cannot imagine.’ But with the easier opening moves now made, future success will be hard-won, particularly now that he has put himself in charge of a process over which he does not have total control. Not only are development and modernization everywhere extremely complicated, slow-moving and long-term phenomena, but he has to deal with both diver- gent and very complicated policy environments and the conflicting interests of his NEPAD interlocutors. He also faces the almost impossible task of creating a peaceful environment in a continent plagued with civil uprisings, military coups, corrupt leadership, maladministration and territorial conflicts.

‘NEPADism’ and failure: a scenario too ghastly to contemplate? Would it really be the end of the world for Africa if NEPAD were to fail? Of course, for Mbeki’s personal prestige and leadership, it would be a catastrophe. For Africa as a whole, it would be a great pity. But a more sanguine view would perhaps be to differentiate between Mbeki’s ‘NEPADism’ and an enduring ‘spirit and imperative of African revival’ transcending grand experiments like NEPAD. If one takes this view, even if Mbeki’s particular version of an African revival plan were to founder, the process of change and development, perhaps with different permutations and along different timetables, would continue. Without doubt, it would be a difficult, long and uneven process. Some African countries would continue to perform badly, but others, albeit the minority, have already done quite well without NEPAD’s helping hand, reflecting better macroeconomic management, stronger agricultural production and more effective conflict management; and they would continue to do so. According to the UN Economic Commission for Africa’s report for 2002, Africa’s average GDP grew by more than 4 per cent in 2001, which is a faster rate than for any

18 ‘The Schuman Declaration’, reproduced in David Weigall and Peter Stirk, The origins and development of the European Union (London: Pinter, 1992), pp. 58–9.

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other developing region, and it ‘weathered the direct effects of the global slowdown’. Doubt about NEPAD being a deus ex machina or a once-and-for-all panacea also arises from the apparently blind faith of its architects in the mechanisms of central planning, a top-down bureaucratic process and what looks like socio- political engineering. Lessons of history, empirical evidence and development theory are largely ignored, and development and modernization are projected as parallel streams in a deliberate and linear process in which ‘all the good things will go together’. It ignores the fact that certain goals of development (growth, equity, democracy, stability and autonomy), as Samuel P. Huntington has pointed out,19 may indeed be conflictual, that the choice of these goals must affect a sequential strategy, and that unique cultural determinants make the whole process difficult to manage and predict. NEPAD and the African Union may very well provide the spark to ignite the much-needed movement on the part of more African nations to take a hard look at their polities, to develop and modernize, and to subject themselves to stricter self-discipline. No doubt NEPAD could be the harbinger of a new beginning. But various permutations of African development are likely to emerge over time, mainly because of the continent’s diversity and deep divisions. Those who expect quick progress according to a single grand bureaucratic plan and strategy are, therefore, likely to be disappointed.

19 Samuel P. Huntington, ‘The goals of development’, in Myron Weiner and Samuel Huntington, Understanding political development (Boston: Little, Brown, 1987), pp. 3–28.

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