[Personally – I don’t care. Its six of one and half a dozen of the other. The one is as socialist as the next. Jan]

Paper President Or Party Strongman: Can Mbeki Rule SA for a Third Term?
Source: Business Day (Johannesburg)

By: Hopewell Radebe
Johannesburg

Unhappy precedents in SA and Malawi show ruling party should tread carefully on the issue

SENIOR members of the African National Congress (ANC) are proposing to separate the powers of the party leader from those of the president after the next national election.

The proposal comes amid keen debate about who in the ANC will succeed Mbeki as president, and the suggestion that that person will not necessarily need to contest the ANC’s presidency, when the ANC next chooses its leaders in 2007.

Some members of the ANC’s national executive committee are weighing their options in their bid to prevent the party and SA losing the influence and international expertise of Mbeki .

Though they would like him to serve another, third term, as president of the ANC, SA’s constitution restricts an individual to two five-year terms.

Mbeki’s supporters say the party can draw from the experience of Malawi, where Bakili Muluzi, leader of the United Democratic Front (UDF), handpicked Bingu wa Mutharika as the party’s candidate for the 2004 elections.

The fact that Mutharika then went on to initiate an aggressive investigation into alleged corruption by members of the previous administration shows he is an independent thinker and not under his predecessor’s control, they say.

This weekend, however, the UDF met to consider Mutharika’s expulsion for being “ungrateful to a party that sponsored him to become president”. The motion was defeated. Mutharika claimed a few weeks ago that members of his party were planning to assassinate him.

Unhappily, too, for Mbeki is the illfated attempt by former state president PW Botha to cling to the presidency even after a debilitating stroke had forced him from the leadership of the National Party in January 1989.

Botha’s motive was “to rise above party politics and be more acceptable to South Africans of all persuasions” (to use the words of his successor and nemesis FW de Klerk). The reality of two competing centres of power, and the growing impatience of the verligte modernisers who supported De Klerk, meant Botha’s scheme was short-lived, so that by August 1989 he had been forced from office aggrieved and bitter at the betrayal of those who had earlier cowed before him in loyal obeisance.

In the case of Mbeki, his supporters say the ANC has already proved, in the separation between the positions of provincial chairmen and premiers, that the scheme could work at national level.

In Gauteng, for example, the party’s executive committee was dissolved to end factionalism and a premier, Mbhazima Shilowa, who was not party provincial chairman, was appointed.

Though Shilowa has since been elected ANC Gauteng chairman , infighting has been contained, say ANC members who want Mbeki to stay on.

But other executive members who oppose the proposal and who want the president of the country to be the president of the party say that in other provinces where the premier is not the provincial party leader, infighting and disharmony persist.

Some premiers who do not enjoy the party’s support, and have been picked for their position by the ANC’s headquarters, contest the provincial party leadership hoping to marry the positions and increase their influence.

For example, South African Communist Party veteran George Mashamba beat Ngoako Ramatlhodi in a contest for the position of ANC chairman in Limpopo. The ANC insisted that Ramatlhodi remain premier and a bitter political battle ensued . Ramatlhodi faced challenges for the party leadership, but their attempt to unseat him failed.

T he tension led to the ANC national executive committee dissolving the Limpopo leadership structure in a bid to end factionalism. Ramatlhodi weathered the storm and was later re-elected provincial chairman, saying he “sleeps better at night” knowing he occupies both positions.

The political battles in Free State illustrated other problems caused by separating party and provincial leadership.

ANC Free State chairman Ace Magashule was overlooked several times for the premiership as ANC headquarters sought to instil discipline and end infighting by electing outsiders such as Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, Winkie Direko and, now, Beatrice Marshoff, as premiers.

Some members argue that subjecting a former president to a situation that has troubled many premiers could weaken the highest office in the land and cause perpetual disunity. They even fear that having a party leader who is not also president could risk splitting the ANC.

Secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe sees no need to change the party’s constitution to define the relationship between the two centres of power.

He says the current arrangement in which the ANC president chooses premiers and the national executive committee deploys members either to provincial legislatures, the National Council of Provinces and the National Assembly will continue.

Motlanthe says it will remain the prerogative of Parliament to elect a new president after Mbeki. The next president will enjoy all the powers the constitution bestows on the presidency without interference from the party leadership including its president.

“The president (of SA) would exercise the prerogative powers to appoint a deputy and the cabinet,” he says.

Motlanthe says the ANC and its leaders, including its president, would respect choices made by SA ‘s president as it has done in respect of provincial premiers. It w ould choose a candidate to top its election list who is a disciplined cadre , understands and subscribes to its vision , and has its support and trust.

“The premiers, for example, take their own decisions and run their administration to the best of their abilities, without interference from the party,” he says.

Analyst Dirk Kotze says if signs appeared that competition to take over from Mbeki threatened to compromise party unity, the ANC may opt to keep Mbeki as party leader to end careerism.

However, under normal circumstances, it is unlikely it will take such a risky path because that can “compromise party unity and shake its stability”.

He says former president Nelson Mandela’s relinquishing of the ANC’s leadership set a precedent for transferring formal power not only in the presidency but also in the party .

He suspects the party w ould not choose to weaken the office of the president by reducing its political power, as the incumbent would struggle to form a cabinet and command its respect.

“It would appear to the world that such a president does not have the confidence of the executive committee in particular and the party membership in particular,” Kotze says.

Source: AllAfrica.Com
URL: http://allafrica.com/stories/200502030304.htm…/p>