South Africa

The dueling headlines tell of the tricky course South Africa has chosen for itself with regard to the situation in Zimbabwe. It is widely recognized that South Africa has the potential to be the biggest external power broker, whether through sticks or carrots, words or deeds. And so far, it is no secret, South Africa has chosen to act so tepidly that the country’s virtual inaction can only qualify as appeasing Robert Mugabe.

And so for readers of, say, the Cape Argus, it may have been reassuring that At Last, SA Condemns Mugabe. But for readers of The New York Times the message was quite different: A.N.C. Rejects Pressure on Zimbabwe. So which is it?

Well, as the Argus story makes clear, while South Africa did finally speak out against Mugabe, it also helped to block even stronger statements from the United Nations Security Council, which has unanimously rebuked Zimbabwe.  And in so doing, South Africa’s leaders have once again forced the world, which little understands the situation to begin with, to wonder, rightly, what on earth Thabo Mbeki could be thinking? Loyalty, even fairly blind loyalty, to the revolutionary generation is one thing. But at some point that currency was long ago spent. The idea that South Africa owes fealty to ZANU-PF at the expense of the masses of Zimbabweans desperate for change is absurd. Mbeki’s approach mystifies and infuriates much of the rest of the world. It is hard to see how either Zimbabweans or South Africans benefit from such an approach to the gravest regional crisis in years.

[Crossposted at the FPA Africa Blog.] 

Crises tend to escalate quickly in South Africa. Just weeks ago there were precious few South Africans who could have identified John Hlophe, the Cape Judge President. Now he is at the center of a row over his alleged involvement in the ongoing arms scandal that some are calling “the greatest showdown in South Africa’s legal history.” Let us assume that this charge is hyperbolic – from the Treason Trials to Jacob Zuma’s forthcoming charges related to those Hlophe faces, the country has not lacked for legal drama, especially in the era after 1948. Nonetheless, the fact that it can be written speaks to the gravity of this crisis.

The ANC is standing behind Hlophe, who adamantly rejects all of the charges, nationally as well as in some of the provinces.  As usual in South Africa, it is difficult to discern where justice, loyalty, and politics converge and where they separate. One tends to assume that all decisions are in some way political. Whether that is cynicism or realism talking, I’ll let readers decide. 

Talk about taking with one hand and giving with the other! Even as the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) seeks a way to have corruption charges against Jacob Zuma disappear and go over the top in their willingness to support him, the organization’s leaders have also made clear that if Zuma disappoints, the ANCYL will have no qualms with working to dump him. The leaders of the Youth League, such as Julius Malema, no stranger to controversy, clearly see their organization as king makers.

Amidst Thabo Mbeki’s very bad few weeks let us not forget that Jacob Zuma has troubles of his own. The latest? Zuma’s presumed choice for the country’s chief justice slot, Cape Judge President John Hlophe, faces accusations that he lobbied at least two Constitutional Court judges for a pro-Zuma ruling.  Hlophe now faces possible impeachment. He also categorically denies the charges as “utter rubbish.” Of course from a career-saving perspective he’d almost have to.

It seems that the various issues that Mbeki and Zuma face tend to break down rather differently. Mbeki’s critics paint him either as incompetent, indifferent, or power-hungry. His are problems of leadership. Zuma, meanwhile, always seems to be in the soup for matters related to ethics or crime or nefariousness. His are problems of integrity. It is hard to determine which is worse, though for the sake or argument I’d maintain that in a democratic system it is easier to rectify incompetence than corruption among leaders. I would further argue that the Big Man syndrome that so haunts Africa tends to stem more from personal malfeasance than from political shortcomings. That said, neither is especially appealing in a leader and one would hope that someone with both governing savviness and personal probity would emerge from within the ANC.   
 

The United States Congress is finally undertaking to remove the African National Congress from various terrorism watch lists in the United States — a status the ANC, or even Mkhonto we Sizwe, never should have suffered in the first place.

Recent shakeups at the South African Broadcasting Corporation have revived what seem to have become perpetual controversies over perceived government encroachments on the SABC’s independence and pressure to adhere to a party line. Perhaps the question should be what role the government should play in the media at all. After all, every government tries to shape and twist and spin and control its image in the media. And other than the ubiquitous concerns over the attempts to control the news at SABC, South Africa has a free and vibrant and boisterous media culture. Even SABC has tremendous press freedom compared to most other state broadcasting arms in the region (admittedly this may not be the most edifying framework of comparison).

At the same time, SABC provides a vital service to South Africans, especially those masses without access to satellite television or M-Net, or who rely on the radio, and one wonders if simple privatization is not too facile an answer to the dilemma. Obviously in an ideal world SABC could operate as a parastatal organization with no interference. And hopefully that will be the end result once some of these latest issues blow over and once the ANC truly realizes that the cost of a free country is a free media. But it does seem to be a mistake to conflate interference, real and perceived, in the operation of the various outlets of the SABC with something more dire in South Africa.

Stop me if this sounds familiar: Recently prominent South African political leaders met away from the country’s major metropolitan areas in order to determine future leadership. The divisions were stark and clear and the leadership campaign tightly contested between two men, both of whom have their supporters and their detractors.

Welcome not to Polokwane 2007, but rather to the ANC Youth League’s (ANCYL) annual national conference at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein. Some of the dynamics from the meetings in Bloem took on different characteristics from the internecine fighting of their parent organization. For example, in Bloemfontein both of the major factions had supported Zuma, as did the ANCYL constituency generally. But much else was up for debate in the leadership contest pitting Julius Malema (who received 1 883 votes) against Saki Mofokeng (who received 1 696). Malema’s allies swept the top five leadership spots, despite the fact that the voting results were similarly close in the winner-take-all contests.

Is this the future that the ANC can look forward to over the next generation? Constant infighting and bitterly divisive conflict? Perhaps, but quite likely not. The current divisions in South Africa are not permanent, do not have to be etched in stone. Still, the proceedings in Bloemfontein were intense enough to rouse Kgalema Motlanthe, deputy president of the African National Congress, to criticize the “state of disorder” that characterized the ANCYL meetings.

Should a government have any role whatsoever in regulating journalism? That is the central question in the emerging debate about the African National Congress’ prospective establishment of a “Media Appeals Tribunal.” 

My initial reaction is that government is best removed from the business of regulating or challenging or facilitating its critics. This is especially the case when the state supports a substantial arm of the media, in this case the SABC and its extensive radio and television empire. Indeed, to go further, in the long run if anything maybe the ANC and the South African government generally, should be thinking of removing itself as fully from media involvement generally. Even if the SABC continues to thrive, perhaps it should receive only state funding, and not other state input.

The Thabo Mbeki-Jacob Zuma divide in the party has mainly revealed political, ideological, and personal fissures within the African national Congress. But one area in which Zuma could significantly undermine Mbeki (and in the process do serious harm to the country) could be in the area of foreign policy. Zuma’s recent trip to Angola clearly sent contradictory signals as to South African policy in that country. Zuma is head of the ANC. But whether he is the chosen one or not (and one would think that Zuma would try to avoid showing quite so much hubris given the hurdles he faces) he is not currently head of state and he has no portfolio with regard to foreign policy. Even if Zuma wants better relations with Angola, such junkets serve Zuma, and not South Africa.

So, how does one assess Jacob Zuma’s first 100 days as ANC President? As with so much in politics in South Africa and elsewhere, where one sits determines where one stands on this question. While the general assessment seems to be that he has experienced a stormy first few months, survey data indicates that support seems to be shifting in his favor and that he still enjoys tremendous popularity among the poor. It seems increasingly clear that Zuma’s future rests entirely with the courts. If he escapes the corruption charges before him unscathed (or at least unconvicted) he will succeed Thabo Mbeki as the next president of South Africa. But if he loses in court, all bets are off and one can be sure there will be a contentious return to the succession battle that many hopes Polokwane had settled in December.