Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred

"No, he certainly doesn’t seem to have those people skills. I have to say that I knew him in the mid-nineties and I was hugely impressed by him. It was perfectly clear then that he didn’t have those skills but I think he felt that he didn’t need them – that Mandela’s touchy-feely image was all very well but it was time for a different style of leader. And that he would be that new, different leader. He would be a man that would be an implementer. He would be a man that would focus on transformation, as he called it, and not so much on reconciliation. The reconciliation era of Mandela’s was all very well, but it was time to get to grips with the nitty-gritty of government. I think there was a strong case for that at the time. Not ‘To hell with reconciliation’, because it would be a disaster for South Africa if whites were to leave en masse, given that they still control large parts of the economy, but there was clearly a case when Mbeki took over for a more rigorous style of government and Mbeki seemed to be the best man. The trouble is he took that impulse to an extreme when he was president, and did end up expounding – sometimes inadvertently but sometimes deliberately – a pretty strong African-Nationalist line which made a lot of whites feel uncomfortable, encouraging the emigration of white professionals, and undid some of the reconciliatory fabric that Mandela had woven. So you’re completely right, he was a very different style of leader and I think that when Mandela was president you could describe Mbeki as having been his prime minister. In some ways they were the perfect combination. You had this statesman, who strode the world like a colossus, and at whose feet everyone fell, and then you had the Mr Fix-it supposedly behind the scenes. Unfortunately the Mr Fix-it had a number of flaws that became more apparent when he became president. It also became apparent that if you are in politics you do need to tend your voters, to tend your supporters and to explain your message. It’s no good to disdain the popular side of politics because ultimately that will be your undoing, and that was one of the lessons of Mbeki’s presidency."