Mbeki can’t save the ANC

If former president Thabo Mbeki is really the most popular politician in South Africa, many people have short memories. Amid the noise about whether Mbeki will campaign for the ANC in this year’s election, it is claimed he scored 57.5% in a favourability survey conducted in October, while President Cyril Ramaphosa scored 44.4%.

There were 1 412 respondents. There are 26 727 921 registered voters and, according to the Electoral Commission of South Africa, about 9.8 million eligible voters who are not registered. So, apparently, by interacting with fewer than 1 500 people, you can discern the views of more than 36 million. Amazing.

Mbeki is the grandfather of load shedding. He is the chief original driver of cadre deployment and black economic empowerment (BEE). These are bringing South Africa to its knees.

In December 2007, Mbeki apologised for not heeding Eskom’s advice years earlier about the need to increase power supply. “Eskom was right and government was wrong,” he said.

This has not stopped him citing load shedding in his jibes against Ramaphosa.

At the 1997 ANC national conference, where Mbeki was elected party president, it was he who drove the adoption of the policy of cadre deployment.

Under Mbeki, laws were passed to entrench BEE, which his brother Moeletsi has since described as “legalised corruption”.

Those who benefit from cadre deployment and BEE may continue to vote for the ANC. In doing so, they are hobbling the economy, with negative consequences for the rest of us... and for future generations.

Mbeki’s support for Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe helped ruin that country and drive millions across borders, mostly to SA. In 2001, Mbeki conceded that Mugabe had ignored his quiet diplomatic advice, saying that Mugabe “didn’t listen to me”.

Yet Mbeki stuck to destructive quiet diplomacy until he was ousted in 2008.

He also purveyed HIV/Aids quackery that cost hundreds of thousands of lives. In 2008, Harvard University’s School of Public Health published a report saying: “More than 330 000 people died prematurely from HIV/Aids between 2000 and 2005 due to the Mbeki government’s obstruction of life-saving treatment, and at least 35 000 babies were born with HIV infections that could have been prevented.”

There are other half-forgotten blots on Mbeki’s legacy. For example, given the prevalence of gender-based violence, he did not set a good example when on a Soweto platform on 16 June, 2001, he physically brushed off Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, “so harshly that her baseball cap fell off”.

He supported corrupt former national police commissioner Jackie Selebi. And, according to former ANC MP Andrew Feinstein, Mbeki was complicit in trying to cover up the notorious arms deal scandal.

Mbeki is not a great choice to boost a sagging political campaign. It is unlikely he will be able to resist sniping at two of his successors, Jacob Zuma and Ramaphosa.

He’s been criticising both. And there are personal animosities stretching back decades.

The ANC is desperate to retain more than 50% of the vote, without which the gravy train will grind to a halt, as Spoornet and Transnet have done under cadre stewardship.

Rolling out an 81-year-old windbag will not keep the party on track.

Former president is not a great choice to boost a sagging political campaign. It is unlikely he will be able to resist sniping at two of his successors.