South Africa

Is the process for choosing the ANC leadership fatally flawed? There are those who believe that the nominating procedure needs to undergo a significant change, bringing the process closer to that in the United States. Malusi Gigaba, South Africa’s Deputy Home Affairs Minister and a member of the NEC argues that such a change is unnecessary and that South African politics are different from those in the US, and the role of the ANC President is fundamentally different from that of the American President. 

It really does appear that Jacob Zuma not only leads the pack in the ANC succession battle, but he also appears to be consolidating his hold on what he clearly believes to be the pending nomination. Part of the perceived change in momentum is the result of the ANC Women’s League’s National Executive Committee to switch allegiance from Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to Zuma to the consternation of some:

Thenjiwe Mtintso, South Africa’s ambassador to Cuba and a member of the league and the ANC NEC, said the move came as a shock because she hoped the league would nominate a woman candidate.

“I was shocked that women can sit in their own conference without having any problem and nominate a man. It’s really a sad day for us that we are not able to lead the pack.”

The ANC Women’s League has clearly made what they believe to be a utilitarian choice based on pragmatic considerations. But in so doing they have made the prospects of a real nomination battle less likely. If the National Prosecuting Authority chooses to pursue corruption charges against Zuma in the next two weeks, that might change the dynamic considerably. As of now, the NPA is either undecided or is keeping mum. Would it come as a shock to anyone if there was a last-minute surprise in which Thabo Mbeki and the current ANC hierarchy managed to apply pressure to the NPA to bring those charges?

Respected Africa expert Martin Meredith has been on quite a roll lately. His book The Fate of Africa: A History of 50 Years of Independence represents one of the most highly regarded and extensive treatments of the continent and its difficult recent past. He recently reissued his indictment of Robert Mugabe, Our Votes, Our Guns: Robert Mugabe and the Tragedy of Zimbabwe in revised form with the new title Mugabe: Power, Plunder, and the Struggle for Zimbabwe. And now he has published Diamonds, Gold, and War: The British, the Boers and the Making of South Africa, an exploration of South African history in the period from 1871 to 1910, and a book almost as ambitious as The Fate of Africa. Here is Janet Maslin’s review in The New York Times.  
 

The ANC has often faced accusations that it has meddled — or worse — in the country’s media, particularly the state-owned but putatively independent South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC). In turn the SABC has stood accused of acquiescing to the ANC, indeed of becoming a mouthpiece for the ruling party. Today’s news that the SABC is being granted exclusive filming rights of the long-anticipated December ANC conference in Polokwane will do little to assuage the accusers of the ANC and SABC. The ties between the ANC and SABC seem especially noisome to the country’s privately-owned media outlets, especially the country’s largest free independent broadcaster, e.tv, who feel they should also be allowed to have cameras inside the venue.  

I found the following chart (From the 2007 Pew Global Attitudes Project via Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, and which accompanied this James Traub story) telling, though frankly I’m uncertain what it tells:

The five countries with the most favorable views of American ideas about democracy are Subsaharan African nations. None of the countries with the least favorable views are African. As someone who believes in the American ideals (and thus ideas) of democracy, broadly framed, but who also has serious qualms about gaps between ideals and practices, I think that what we might have here is a case in which Africans see the ideals and hope that the reality will follow while those with a negative view of the United States and its democratic ideals have had recent confrontations with the United States in which those ideals gave way to pragmatic realities that were not so nice. Most of those encounters, though not all, would be directly connected to current American policies in the Middle East. I cannot help but wonder (or perhaps hope) if the ideals don’t endure beyond the temporal manifestations of American policy.

It appears that Jacob Zuma now leads the race for the ANC leadership, the fruits of which almost assuredly will be the country’s presidency after the country’s 2009 elections. At least this is the scuttlebut from Western Cape ANC secretary Mcebisi Skwatsha (via the Cape Argus),  the Mail & Guardian (via SAPA), and the BBC. Actual polling results indicate that the race is a virtual dead heat. Meanwhile some continue to hope for a “third way” that would elude the party’s Zuma-Mbeki split.

I’ll admit, I’m uneasy with Zuma’s ascendancy. Even if he finds himself fully acquitted of all charges, the rape chages he faced and the corruption charges that still linger around him are, to say the least, disquieting and reveal appalling judgment even if they do not amount to criminal conduct. Furthermore, I wonder if his appeal among the rank-and-file is not more the result of discontent with Mbeki and Zuma’s own capacity to play the populist.

There are still three weeks or so until the ANC conference will solidify its future leadership. Nothing is set in stone. But it seems clear that Zuma will enter the conference as the party frontrunner.  

I’d like to apologize for the paucity of posting. The Foreign Policy Association has been upgrading its blog server and there have been some glitches, but it looks like we’re back up and running. Thanks for your patience.

The Council on Foreign Relations has a feature on  how some think South Africa is underachieving in its role as a regional power. I’ve written that South Africa has to walk a tightrope in its role as a regional superpower. And it seems that much of the western consternation exists at least in part because South Africa taking a stronger role allows the west to abdicate a stronger role in the region. but it is nonetheless true that South Africa appears to have lost the plot with regard to its foreign affairs. Where once Mbeki preached a vibrant and engaging vision of Pan Africanism, now he appears content to traffic in platitudes and to operate out of narrow self interest. Of course there is a certain irony to the west complaining about South Africa placing self interest first in the queue, but that does not in and of itself mean that some of the criticisms going pretoria’s way are not warranted.

For my American readers, have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Does this news come as a shock to any observer of the situation in Zimbabwe?:

Just four months before scheduled elections, and with a breakthrough in talks brokered by President Thabo Mbeki in sight, Zimbabweans are watching in dismay as the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) disintegrates and Zanu-PF tweaks electoral regulations in its favour.

Zimbabweans and other observers continue to hope for the emergence of a “third way,” a new movement made up of elements from both the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and disgruntled members of Mugabe’s once unbreakable Zanu-PF, for whom Mugabe’s megalomania and authoritarianism want to break the old tyrant’s stranglehold on the state.

At the Mail & Guardian ANC stalwart Pallo Jordan has a discursive, somewhat diffuse cri de couer in which he honors the party’s past, defends the party’s history of honoring the collective, and gives respect to some of the party’s lions, such as Oliver Tambo and Albert Luthuli. In this time of party division and its uncertain future it is not surprising that some might look to the past to try to reconcile the present. As Jordan writes:

By nurturing the best of its traditions the ANC has outlived many younger movements. But the movement’s resilience and capacity for self-renewal has ensured it remained relevant over the decades despite the massive changes in national, regional and international politics.

It is frankly difficult to discern an actual prescription in Jordan’s piece, but it seems like an attempt to urge the party to look beyond its schisms and to continue to cultivate unity. Something tells me that his idealized future won’t be coming to fruition next month.

It’s always proven remarkably easy for the West to make promises to Africa. It has been in the area of following through on those promises where the outside world has so often fallen short. Thabo Mbeki has identified the crises in Sudan as an area in which promises have been made, and at least to this point, have gone unfulfilled:

A majority of the countries who undertook to assist Sudan financially in implementing the African country’s peace agreement have not fulfilled their pledges, President Thabo Mbeki said on Wednesday.

Briefing the media at Tuynhuys in Cape Town following a meeting with his Sudanese counterpart Omar al-Bashir, Mbeki said that despite the international donor community having pledged to assist with equipment and other resources required to help the Sudanese government resolve its political crisis, many of the countries still had not yet delivered.

“Various countries around the world have not yet responded,” he said.

He said making the resources available to the Sudanese government was a critical element for the resolution of the crisis, and that the South African government would do everything in its power to ensure that countries fulfilled their pledges.

“We need to bring everybody on board,” Mbeki said.

South Africa is often caught in a difficult situation in its role as a continental leader. But Mbeki is right: when the world does not follow through on its promises, especially in a crisis situation such as that in both Darfur, and increasingly in the once-again rumbling south of Sudan, it almost guarantees that chaos will continue to reign.