Fellow South Africans ...
I have no doubt that you are aware of the announcement made yesterday by the National Executive Committee of the ANC with regard to the position of the President of the Republic.
Accordingly, I would like to take this opportunity to inform the nation that today I handed a letter to the Speaker of the National Assembly, the Honourable Baleka Mbete, to tender my resignation from the high position of President of the Republic of South Africa, effective from the day that will be determined by the National Assembly.
I have been a loyal member of the African National Congress for 52 years. I remain a member of the ANC and therefore respect its decisions. It is for this reason that I have taken the decision to resign as President of the Republic, following the decision of the National Executive Committee of the ANC.
I would like sincerely to thank the nation and the ANC for having given me the opportunity to serve in public office during the last 14 years as the Deputy President and President of South Africa.
This service has at all times been based on the vision, the principles and values that have guided the ANC as it prosecuted a difficult and dangerous struggle in the decades before the attainment of our freedom in 1994.
Among other things, the vision, principles and values of the ANC teach the cadres of this movement life-long lessons that inform us that wherever we are and whatever we do we should ensure that our actions contribute to the attainment of a free and just society, the upliftment of all our people, and the development of a South Africa that belongs to all who live in it.
This is the vision of a South Africa that is democratic, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous; a country in which all the people enjoy a better life. ...
President Thabo Mbeki [transcript]
As expected, Thabo Mbeki relinquished the office of president at a time of his choosing, in a manner befitting a head of state, using a language unmistakeably his own. Many have congratulated the ANC on the dignity with which Mbeki's ouster was handled. The dignity belongs to the man, not the chaotic remnants of the party that turned on him. His moral integrity intact, Mbeki is now well-placed to answer a vexed question beloved of journalists, i.e. "What happens after Mandela?" (WHAM)
A rough country rooted in patriarchy, we need elder statesmen and, in the months and years to come, as the dust and acrimony settle, many will question Kgalema Motlanthe's or Jacob Zuma's actions, asking "What has Mbeki to say of the matter?"
Yes, our journalists are naive. These past two weeks, it has been perversely amusing watching coverage of the beginning of the end of capitalism as we know it. Variously stunned or elated by money markets battered by natural and bogus forces, consensus was that the president's resignation would have little or no economic impact. Fools. Yes, we all remember railing at Mbeki's intransigence on AIDS, Zimbabwe, xenophobia, etc. but we too quickly forget that he has presided over our most-prolonged period of economic growth.
I reckon quite a few politicians were watching the ZARand take a beating today — hedging their bets.
Thabo Mbeki is a quiet man of few words. A tireless worker, he took his mandate seriously and expected South Africans to do the same. Elected to office, he saw little need for populism, eschewing fireside chats for negotiation and action, most frequently elsewhere and in relative obscurity. Discrete diplomacy was his talent and he was damned good at it.
Despite evidence to the contrary (many crossed Thabo and few survived), opportunists insisted his unassuming but aloof nature — painted 'paranoid' or 'conspiratorial' — to be the chink in his armor. Sooner or later, they believed (or in MotoMouth Malema's case, boasted), they would take him down. They weren't able to. Thabo Mbeki is not a man to hang around where he is not wanted. By the time the rot had reached the ANC's NEC and NWC, he had probably assessed and come to terms with his and South Africa's future and was fully prepared to pull off a magnificent exit. His address to the nation, bluntly rebutting recent allegations levelled at him by the courts, comprised a simple statement: "Follow me if you can."
The goons and ghouls ready to push Speaker Baleka Mbete-Kgositsile in to warm Zuma's coveted throne were cautioned by the level-headed leaders left to what was once a proud movement. Any overt rush to insinuate Zuma into the presidency would be disastrous. Given international reaction to Zuma's coup d'etat (comparisons with Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, etc are odious — the ANC enjoys a 70 percent share of the vote, virtually all politics takes place within the party, and we are more a one-party state than a democracy), there's a good chance Kgalema Motlanthe will take over as president.
Virtually unknown abroad and infinitely better qualified than Zuma for the post, Motlanthe could do far worse than improve the presidency's and South Africa's image over the next seven months. He will have to do so mindful of Zuma's close proximity to his back and greatly increased pressure on the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) not to reinstitute charges of racketeering and 700 cases of fraud against the ANC's leader.
Moreover, he might have a Zuma minder at his side. Should Zuma's former PA, Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, get the nod as Deputy President, Motlanthe might find it as difficult to exercise his will as did Mbeki.
But that's next week's news. Thabo Mbeki steps down on Thursday and his demeanor to now suggests that, like all good things, time will look on his presidency as being inextricably linked to that which we have lived through; some of the best of times. Many dislike Mbeki, not least the international financial media. They'd do well to reflect on some of their own shortcomings.
I've not heard Nelson Mandela speak on this calamity, but I doubt it phases him. And I doubt he'll resent handing Mbeki the mantle of elder statesman. The boy the old troika felt was not ready for the job appears to have outgrown his peers.
Mbeki saw Coriolanus as a revolutionary role model who was prepared to go to war with his own people to defend the nation's principles. In the end, Coriolanus is exiled because of his unwillingness to publicly parade after returning from a successful campaign.
Mr. Gevisser suggested that Mbeki saw his own future in Coriolanus. "The person who does good, and does it honestly, must expect to be overpowered by forces of evil," he told Gevisser during a 1999 interview. "But it would be incorrect not to do good just because you know death is coming."
Christian Science Monitor | The Fall of Africa's Shakespearian Figure
