Was Mbeki right about Zuma? iLIVE
FILE PHOTO: South African president, Jacob Zuma, and deputy president, Kgalema Motlanthe, speak at a celebration of the ANC's centenary flame arriving at Luthuli House in Johannesburg's CBD. 01 October 2012.
Image by: Daniel Born / The Times
Image by: Daniel Born / The Times
Your coverage of Trevor Manuel's insightful speech at the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation conference ("Leadership not just for politicians", yesterday) brought to mind the words of the biographer of Thabo Mbeki, who wrote in the introduction of The Dream Deferred: "Mbeki allegedly worried that [Jacob] Zuma and his backers had no respect for the rule of law, and would be unaccountable to the constitutional dispensation the ANC had put into place if they came to power.
There was also the worry of a resurgence of ethnic politics, and - given his support from the left - that Zuma's leftist advisers would undo all the meticulous stitching of South Africa into the global economy that Mbeki and his economic managers had undertaken over 15 years."
Mark Gevisser wrote those words in 2007, before the Polokwane conference swept Zuma to power. Now, on the eve of the next ANC conference, it behoves the delegates to decide for themselves whether the deep distress attributed to Mbeki was justified, be it for the reasons suggested by Gevisser or otherwise.
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