'She's married to the ANC treasurer, and dependent on Mbeki in a way most other ministers aren't''If you're a favoured appointee, irrespective of how badly you mess up, he will not remove you'
PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki has remained resolute in defence of Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, in the face of mounting evidence of her alcohol abuse, and a theft conviction against her.
The President's actions - in removing her effective but bristly deputy, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, while defending the obedient but often embarrassing Tshabalala-Msimang - raise the question: what is it that motivates Mbeki to consistently come to the defence of by far the most controversial member of his Cabinet?
Not only has Mbeki defended her, but it now appears that he appointed her to the Cabinet knowing full well that she had been convicted of theft - and even treated for kleptomania.
What emerges is a cocktail of long-standing personal political relationships; bonds of marriage and friendship; converging ideas; and a tenacious, reciprocated loyalty.
Mark Gevisser, author of the biography Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred, due out next month, traces the relationship between Mbeki and Tshabalala-Msimang back to 1962, when they left South Africa together as part of a group of 27 students identified as future leaders of the ANC.
Gevisser believes the hard times they went through in their bid to join the movement in exile forged a bond between them which has lasted until today.
"It was a very traumatic trip. They were detained together in a Bulawayo jail for six weeks and were later stuck in Botswana, where it looked like they were going to be deported back to South Africa.
"There was a quite intense bonding that took place on that trip. That is where they really got to know each other."
Tshabalala-Msimang's official government biographies - one of which describes her as the "ace" in Mbeki's Cabinet, and another as "the essence of true greatness" - tell a similar tale.
"These students ... had been identified as future leaders of South Africa who would one day return triumphantly to the country of their birth. With their fists in the air, they fled the country under the guise of being members of a football team!" one biography gushes.
It was the start of a political relationship that - although not always harmonious - has lasted 45 years.
"For many years in the President's study there was a photograph of the group finally arriving to freedom in Dar es Salaam. In the picture is Manto Mali, as she was know at the time," says Gevisser.
"One of their Cabinet colleagues told me that when she was first appointed as deputy minister of Justice, the colleague asked Mbeki why she had been appointed.
"The colleague told me that Mbeki's response was to point at the photograph and say, 'She's been with us since the very beginning. She is a professional who, like many, got their qualification through the ANC. She could have gone into practice like others did, but she didn't do so and remained with the movement.'"
Gevisser believes this personal loyalty is the key to Mbeki's refusal to axe Tshabalala-Msimang despite the history of embarrassing gaffes that have punctuated her public life.
"This underlines the very intense sense of loyalty that he has to her and that he believes she has to him. I would surmise that it is this loyalty that still drives the relationship," Gevisser says.
Other observers share Gevisser's view as to why - in part at least - Mbeki has both elevated Tshabalala-Msimang and defended her in the face of years of public pressure.
It was during Mbeki's consolidation of power as deputy president in 1996 - at a time when he was tasked with choosing deputy ministers after the National Party contingent had left the then Government of National Unity - that he made her deputy minister of Justice. She had previously acted as chairman of the Health portfolio committee in the National Assembly.
When Mbeki ascended to the Presidency in 1999, he appointed Tshabalala-Msimang as minister of Health.
This coincided with Mbeki's growing domestic and international profile as an Aids sceptic; Tshabalala-Msimang would come to act as the public face of his thinking.
The President's sometimes baffling backing of his minister comes despite them having been in conflict in the past within the ANC.
Gevisser's research threw up fascinating details of just how out of step politically they have been: she was among a group of ANC students who were involved in a bid to remove Mbeki as head of the ANC's student wing.
"As far as I know, they didn't have much to do with each other, given where they were, physically. Both the minister and her first husband, Mandla Tshabalala, were studying in the Soviet Union, and Mbeki in the West.
"There is documentation which shows there was quite a lot of conflict in the ANC's student wing, known as the African Student Association in the Soviet Bloc and the Youth and Student Section in the West.
"Mbeki's leadership was very strongly challenged by his colleagues in the Soviet Union, who questioned his bona fides as he was in the West. Among them were the Tshabalalas and Joe Nhlanhla, who later also became close to Mbeki.
"Among the documentation is a report in which Mbeki reports being threatened by Tshabalala."
This conflict, in the late 1960s, while Tshabalala-Msimang was a student at the First Leningrad Medical Institute, did not sour relations between her and Mbeki in the longer term.
Others point to the role of her second husband, ANC treasurer-general Mendi Msimang - who she married in October 1982 - in keeping her afloat.
Msimang is a close friend and ally of Mbeki's and reputedly one of the few confidants the President has consulted when making Cabinet appointments.
ANC National Executive Committee sources point to a call Msimang made on Mbeki not to "relieve" Tshabalala-Msimang for health reasons during hospitalisation for her liver transplant - on the grounds that it would be a personal affront to him.
At the time there was an expectation - both publicly and within the ANC - that Mbeki would use her illness as an opportunity to get rid of her and appoint a new Health minister without either himself or Tshabalala-Msimang losing face.
However, according to the sources, Msimang was unhappy with this and insisted that Mbeki retain her.
The story that circulated about Msimang taking the opposite position and asking that she be allowed to go home and rest is, according to these sources, an attempt to divert public attention from the channel which exists between Mbeki and Msimang.
"Mbeki has been close to Mendi Msimang since he was a student in England in the mid-'60s," says Gevisser.
"At the time, Msimang worked for [late ANC president] Oliver Tambo in the ANC's London office."
So close is Msimang to the Mbekis, says Gevisser, that he was the witness at their wedding in the UK in 1979. Mbeki was instrumental in getting Msimang elected to the position of treasurer-general in 1997.
Some say it is this relationship which gives Tshabalala-Msimang a level of access to the President beyond the Cabinet: that it is the ANC treasurer-general who cements the relationship.
As one former senior government official puts it: "Certainly the minister, when things don't work out for her, goes outside the formal channels to the President and does not hesitate to do so."
His ANC position, his age and the close ties he shared with Tambo and Mbeki in exile give him a massive amount of clout both within the party and with Mbeki. In money terms - particularly as ANC fundraising falls under his control - he is the one who knows where the bodies are buried.
Tshabalala-Msimang has, in her articulation of policy on HIV/Aids, keenly articulated Mbeki's thinking, despite the fact that she did not have a history as an Aids sceptic when she first took office.
Her opposition to the use of antiretrovirals - along with the controversial garlic, onion and beetroot mantra - is understood to be an articulation of Mbeki's thinking, rather than her own.
"If you look closely at Tshabalala-Msimang's own trajectory, when she came into the ministry, she was in no way an Aids sceptic," says Gevisser.
"In fact she led a very high-profile delegation of NGOs and doctors to Uganda to try to find out what they were doing right.
"In the beginning of Mbeki's engagement with the Aids dissidents, she prepared a document which Mbeki sent to the dissidents, reflecting the orthodox position," says Gevisser.
"It is clear that she didn't come into the job as a sceptic, but has been clearly educated or influenced by her engagement with Mbeki.
"My sense is that she articulates his perspective on HIV/Aids."
But how much currency does Tshabalala-Msimang secure with the President via her conversion to Aids scepticism?
Gevisser points to the fact that her predecessor as Health minister, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who never entertained dissident philosophy, remains a firm favourite of the President.
"It is interesting to compare the roles of Dlamini-Zuma and Tshabalala-Msimang.
"There is no question that Dlamini-Zuma is no Aids sceptic. She believes in orthodox approaches and yet is still very close to Mbeki. She played the key role in persuading Mbeki to agree to the universal ARV roll-out, but it is the current Health minister who articulates his thinking," says Gevisser.
"When Mbeki agreed to go along with the majority in 2002 and to authorise a universal roll-out of ARVs, he justified it to himself and those close to him by saying, 'We can do it as long as people know what the implications are, and the fact that they have choices'.
"That is they way he was able to live with the decision. What the minister has been doing ever since is articulating that policy, saying, 'Yes, there are ARVs, but you do have choices and must be informed and look at options from vitamins, to traditional medicine, to nutrition'."
It is this she was articulating when she told Reuters in 2005: "When we talk about antiretrovirals, I will continue to educate the people in this country about the side-effects of ARVs ... I have no information that nutrition has got side-effects ... your garlic, your lemon, your olive oil, your beetroot."
What is clear is that with her appalling public profile and no real constituency within the ANC, Tshabalala-Msimang owes her very political survival to Mbeki in a far broader context then the current crisis.
Political analyst Protas Madlala says that while their historical relationship contributes to the President's defence of Tshabalala-Msimang, it has more to do with a consistent refusal to accept public criticism of his appointees.
"I think the President's approach has more to do with his personality than anything else - I don't think it is anything peculiar to Manto.
"The reality is that the more people criticise the President's favoured appointees, the more he digs in his heels.
"If you are a favoured appointee and in his good books, irrespective of how badly you mess up in your ministry, he will not remove you."
Mbeki's refusal to act against National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi, in the face of mounting evidence of his links with organised crime figures, dovetails with Madlala's argument.
Tshabalala-Msimang's standing in the party has improved dramatically since Mbeki appointed her to Cabinet.
She was only elected to the party's NEC for the first time at Stellenbosch in 2002, placed 57th out of 60 directly elected members. She had not been elected to the party's core committee at any of the three earlier national conferences held since the ANC was unbanned.
"Manto is politically weak and doesn't have a support base of her own," says an observer.
"She is married to the ANC treasurer, and is dependent on Mbeki in a way that most other Cabinet members aren't.
"There are strong, independent people in the Cabinet and there are weak, vulnerable people.
"Manto is in the latter category, Dlamini-Zuma in the former."
Other observers say this malleability and loyalty may add to Mbeki's determination to keep her in office.
"Did Mbeki put her in this position as minister of Health because he knew he needed a malleable person?" asks one.
"His Aids scepticism started in mid-1999 when he was choosing his Cabinet.
"I don't know if he went for somebody who would be more pliable than Dlamini-Zuma, who would be less likely to challenge him."
Madlala cites their "common denialism" as a key factor in Tshabalala-Msimang being retained in Cabinet.
"On HIV/Aids, the President dreams and Manto implements. She is the one who in effect implements his policies.
"The common denialism is a very strong factor - they share this vision and she is very faithful to him and that is why she is getting this level of protection."
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