San Francisco Chronicle - Wednesday, June 27, 2001
Gavin du Venage, Chronicle Foreign Service

Distancing himself was astute. His predecessor was a virtual saint who brought peace and racial reconciliation to South Africa; Mbeki was depicted as a pragmatist and intellectual and was dubbed "Mr. Delivery" by the media. That was then. These days, he is being called "Mr. Disaster."

A series of blunders have turned Mbeki's presidency into a public relations fiasco -- his questioning of the link between HIV and AIDS; his failure to censure Robert Mugabe, the president of neighboring Zimbabwe, for his increasingly erratic and brutal rule; and most recently, claims that three top figures in the ruling African National Congress plotted to oust him.

"I am deeply, deeply disappointed in the way Mbeki's presidency has turned out," said political commentator and columnist Max du Preez, who was once one of Mbeki's biggest admirers and a fan of his "formidable intellect."

"It is vital that South Africa distinguishes itself from the rest of Africa, but Mbeki keeps saying and doing things that lump us together with all the rest of the continent's basket cases," du Preez said.

Mbeki's first -- and biggest -- mistake in office was to treat the country's HIV scourge as an academic exercise rather than a human tragedy. As word of his praise for the theories of fringe scientists and his administration's reluctance to provide lifesaving medicine to poor AIDS patients spread globally, he was labeled eccentric -- or as the British press more bluntly put it, "bonkers."

Paul Graham, a political analyst at the Institute for a Democratic South Africa, says Mbeki failed to distinguish between talking as an individual and speaking as the president of the country.

"I think he set out his views on AIDS with the idea that they were his own, personal thoughts on a subject to be debated," said Graham. "He clearly did not realize that they would be seen as a political statement that would have profound consequences for his own, and the country's, image."

The debacle was a personal disaster. Mbeki's defensiveness in the face of mounting criticism revealed his intense insecurity. While his years in exile had taught him to live by his intellect, it had become clear that his dialectic skills were not enough; people wanted action, not talk.

Mbeki has always been a diplomat rather than a soldier. He spent decades persuading foreign governments to back the ANC's cause. He convinced the Soviets that the movement would run a liberated South Africa as a communist state. To Western leaders and businessmen, he patiently explained that his relationship with the Communist Party was a necessary expedient to ensure Soviet military support. Once apartheid was destroyed, Mbeki promised, the ANC would introduce Western-style capitalism.

It was that same diplomatic skill -- focused on a handful of heavyweights in the faction-ridden ANC -- that won him the post of successor to Mandela. But Mbeki's lack of popular support among street-level township activists is now costing him, as former backers such as Mandela's former wife, Winnie, are angered by his failure to support their agendas.

Winnie Mandela released to the press a letter she wrote denouncing Mbeki as a womanizer who, she said, slept with the wives of top party officials. In the letter, she also complained that Mbeki "forgot" about her after winning the struggle to succeed Nelson Mandela.

Less than two weeks ago, Mbeki raised his hand to block a kiss proffered by Mandela at a political rally, shoving her face just hard enough to knock her hat to the ground and stunning the country in the process.

Mbeki has failed dismally in gaining public approval. Most South Africans, of all races and political affiliations, regard him as a remote figure disinterested in the tough daily existence of ordinary blacks.

"South Africans want a savior," said Graham. "With Mandela, we had a personality that made us feel secure, but this is not in Mbeki's style." Mbeki's ascent to the presidency appears to have left him feeling isolated, paranoid and bogged down with the minutiae of governance.

"He had a lot to do with the success of Mandela's presidency," Graham acknowledged. "He . . . attended to day-to-day matters, leaving Mandela free to play his role as statesman.

"But Mbeki has no Mbeki of his own to take up some of the pressure. He is not good at delegating."

Members of Mbeki's inner circle are obliged to show absolute loyalty. This may explain Police Minister Steve Tshwete's surprise announcement in late April that three black businessmen and senior ANC members were "plotting" against Mbeki. Among the accused was Cyril Ramaphosa, the former trade unionist who, some say, is a likely contender for the presidency.

Mbeki has since distanced himself from the allegations. But such severe gaffes are likely to occur more often as his supporters fall over themselves trying to prove their devotion.

At an ANC conference earlier this year, Smuts Ngonyama, a top party official, compared Mbeki to Jesus, telling delegates: "It's the same. Out of all the disciples around him, everyone is loyal and openly supports him. But one of us will betray him, and it will hurt because it is one of us who is selling out."

The sense of constant crisis has obscured some notable successes for Mbeki, particularly in terms of economic stability.

In every round of wage negotiations with the militant public service unions, it has been the unions who have blinked first. He has maintained stringent control over government spending -- to the extent that the World Bank complains vociferously about South Africa's repeated rejection of loan offers, probably the only developing country in the world to do so.

Analyst Johann Landman adds that Mbeki has been given little credit for bringing the more militant segments of society under control: "He has kept the ANC caucus in line and has not succumbed to the populist approach demanded by churches, unions, nongovernmental organizations and student bodies. He has emasculated them through intimacy."

Unfortunately, these achievements mean little to the millions of unemployed who wait around the dusty streets of Soweto day after day. Cynthia Mphepa, a single mother of two, lives in a small two-room brick house built through the government's one-time-only $1,800 housing loan to first-time homeowners. "We are suffering here," Mphepa said. "I have no job. I cannot pay my electricity or water bills. The council has cut off the power and have said that if I do not pay by the end of the month, they will take my house."

Mphepa is one of the 11 million unemployed South Africans -- a third of the population -- who are still hoping Mbeki will deliver on his promise to provide them with a regular job and three square meals a day.

Former Deputy Tourism Minister Bantu Holomisa, who enjoyed a huge following among ANC rank-and-file members before being forced to quit the party in 1996, says Mbeki's level of public support is so low that he could not be re-elected.

Holomisa, who now leads a new party, betrayed a touch of glee at his former boss's predicament: "Poor boy, he just does not have a clue. If ordinary South Africans could vote tomorrow for a new president, they would do so. And if Cyril Ramaphosa was to stand (for election), he would knock Mbeki's lights out. "

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