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Zimbabwe: Mbeki Out On a Limb On His Secretive, One-Man Mediation Mission
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Business Day (Johannesburg)
ANALYSIS
18 July 2008
Posted to the web 18 July 2008
Wilson Johwa
Johannesburg
ONLY President Thabo Mbeki knows what is happening in the Zimbabwe mediation process, leaving the African National Congress (ANC) hamstrung and largely shooting in the dark.
The new ANC leadership has begun flexing its muscles ahead of its takeover of the government in the middle of next year.
Last week it pressed Mbeki into announcing the appointment of party deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe to his cabinet, and it has also moved to oust two premiers.
However, the Zimbabwe crisis is still very much Mbeki's to solve. Unwilling to give up or share the burdensome task, Mbeki is hoping a breakthrough in the talks will preserve his legacy and help stem the tide of criticism directed at his presidency since Polokwane.
"He's not someone who admits defeat very easily," says Mbeki biographer Mark Gevisser. He feels the president harbours ambitions to become an international problem-solver when he retires.
"He believes that if he can't solve a problem in his own backyard, who will trust him with any other problem?"
University of Zimbabwe political analyst Eldred Masunungure says Mbeki's mediation has split public opinion in Zimbabwe, as in SA.
"Some criticism may be unfair, driven by a simplified understanding of the Zimbabwean problem," he says.
Yet there is a belief among some -- including the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) -- that Mbeki is a perfidious broker not prone to even-handedness.
"He is too cautious, whereas Zimbabweans are impatient for a quick solution," said Masunungure.
Even the ANC is part of the "impatient wing" of the regional and international community.
Concerned at the damage of Mbeki's "quiet diplomacy" to SA's reputation, the party opened direct communications with the two sides in Zimbabwe.
While it condemned the violence in the country, the party also voiced support for Mbeki's mediation, sanctioned by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) last year.
But on the ground, Mbeki and the ANC do not necessarily agree with each other's role on the Zimbabwe crisis.
Privately, senior ANC officials complain of being kept in the dark by Mbeki on progress in the mediation.
"He feels on Zimbabwe as he feels on everything else, that he knows better than everybody else," says Steven Friedman, at the Centre for the Study of Democracy.
However, the ANC has not itself been consistent on the Zimbabwe issue.
Gevisser says the party is caught between positioning itself globally as a responsible successor to Mbeki, while also needing to address the requirements of its core constituency, keep a working relationship with Mbeki, and choose which battles to fight with him.
This week, at the end of its national executive committee meeting, the party criticised the United Nations Security Council resolution on Zimbabwe, arguing its success would have totally removed the issue from African hands. "We had a responsibility to defend the continent," says party secretary-general Gwede Mantashe.
Yet the ANC's alliance partners have taken a much more principled position, pressing for a tougher line, which might influence government policy when Mbeki steps down next year. But Masunungure says Zanu (PF) will want the crisis resolved by the time Mbeki leaves. "They know that the configuration of forces in southern Africa will change with a new government in SA."
When he meets African Union (AU) chairman Jean Ping today , Mbeki is likely to be asked to accept assistance in the mediation. But presidential spokesman Mukoni Ratshitanga says this is a decision for SADC "because SADC appointed him mediator". In any case, an additional mediator is unnecessary, says Depity Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad.
Since the one-man June 27 election won by Mugabe, there has been increased support for a broadening of the mediation effort in Zimbabwe. The MDC has demanded the appointment of a special AU representative to work with Mbeki.
Gevisser feels Mbeki shares Mugabe's neocolonialism fears, that once you let the AU in, it stops being a southern African problem, and "the next thing you know is that the issue is brokered in London or New York".
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Mbeki's administration has been credited with playing a positive role in building peace on the continent. As a result, some see Mbeki's legacy as more mixed than a complete failure.
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