Politics.za

Today President Mbeki delivered his State Of The Nation address to parliament. Much to the relief of some as he focused part of the address on crime, promising more police on the streets, putting more staff in forensic and detective units and getting the Dept of Home Affairs in order. All earnestly said with much conviction.

Unfortunately there has been much Mbeki has said in past State Of The Nation addresses that have yet to come to fruition. For instance 2 years ago Mbeki announced that schools could soon enjoy highly discounted internet access fees. Straight after that we never heard about it again except for the odd article mentioning that no schools had yet to receive any such discount. Ask the Department of Communications about the hold up and they’ll blame Telkom, ask Telkom and they’ll blame the ISPs, ask the ISPs and they blame the Department of Communication.

Unless there is a concerted political will behind any announcement made in his address, Mbeki risks many of his plans having the same fate as the now forgotten school internet access discount.

Despite repeated claims by government that the arms deal was “not affected by any corruption”, the German government has now asked the National Prosecuting Authority for assistance in their own investigation. That kind of adds a bit more weight to the accusations. Independent Democrat leader Patricia De Lille is also getting back to her old corruption busting roots that everyone initially loved her for, as opposed to her suicidal political strategies in the Cape Town local government, by personally going to both Germany and the UK to meet with investigators there.

The German investigation is focusing on Chippy Shaik (brother of already convicted bribery middle man Schabir Shaik, fancy that) and his alleged $3 million bribe he solicited from German firm ThyssenKrupp, who were awarded the contract to build the SA Navy’s Valour class frigates. At the time Chippy was the head of aquisitions for the arms deal so of course he would be the guy to bribe if you had to, not to mention the guy to throw a few juicy contracts his brothers way. The eye opening thing to me was that up until 1999 bribery wasn’t even illegal in Germany, you just filed it under ‘other expenses’ on your balance sheet.

To me it seems the pressure is building on Thabo Mbeki at an increasing rate. It’s one thing to brush off accusations of bribery from the “jealous opposition”, it’s a lot harder when the governments of Germany and the UK start making the same rumbling noises. This coupled with the whole FNB pulled ad fiasco is going to make the upcoming State of the Nation address very interesting.

What’s a worse indicator about government? That Fist National Bank was prepared to spend R20 million(!) on an ad campaign encouraging the government to do something about crime or that government (specifically the executive branch) forced them to drop it ?

A recent poll has found that Thabo Mbeki’s popularity has dropped to a 53% approval rating, 8% lower than when it was six months ago. Now while such a statistic is almost useless as we don’t directly elect the President it is interesting to note that despite the decline in Mbeki’s rating, the ANC’s popularity only dropped a minuscule 1.7% to 66.3%.

This highlights the fact that the majority of voters still see the ANC as the only viable option for government, despite the sheer volume of bad press over leadership squabbles, scandals and bad governance that seems to emanate from them. Opposition parties, particularly the DA (down 1.1%, which hurts a lot more when you only had 10% popularity), the ACDP and IFP (remaining constant at 3.3% and 2.4% respectively) have so far failed to capitalise on any voter dissatisfaction with the ANC.

The Mail & Guardian have released some excerpts from the report on the blacklisting of political commentators from the SABC by SABC head of news Snuki Zikalala. The excerpts are pretty damning and the fact that the SABC refuses to release the full report while claiming that no blacklisting was present is really an indication of how embarassing it is to them that they’re trying their best to bury it.

As an example here’s a quote from Ziakalala about why he banned ‘Thabo Mbeki and the battle for the soul of the ANC’ author William Mervyn Gumede from the airwaves (emphasis mine):

I never said don’t use William Gumede. I said to, I think to one editor…I have a problem with William Gumede. I have not read his book because his book is based on sources. And for [your] information, I was about to employ William Gumede as one of my column editors. But immediately when he wrote [Thabo Mbeki and the soul of the ANC]...I said this man is not reliable because he does not mention (his) sources.

He has not yet actually read his book but feels that he is qualified to ban him on the views expressed in that book (which are actually not that critical of Mbeki). It almost exactly mirrors SABC CEO Dali Mpofu canning of the Mbeki documentary without actually having seen it himself. It just conjures up a picture of SABC management covering their ears and shouting ‘LALALALALA I CAN’T HEAR YOU’ whenever a story critical of Mbeki or his policies comes into the newsroom.

Thabo Mbeki might be having a terrible year at home but he can still point to his role as elder African stateman helping to mediate in conflicts across the continent. However it seems his efforts there might not be welcome any more opposition rebels in Coite D’Ivoire consider Mbeki to be biased against them. Dude’s not having a good year.

In a totally non-suprising move ANC Secretary General Kgalema Motlanthe has denied that he has any presidential aspirations. Mothlanthe’s name was thrown about during the Zuma rape case by some in the SACP as being a replacement candidate should JZ have been found guilty.

Is there anyone in the ANC who is willing to put their neck out there a bit and show some desire to lead or is this really going to turn into a papal election?

Moneyweb has two opinion pieces today on possible presidential contenders. Barry Sergeant writes about Tito Mboweni calling him ‘Zuma’s Nemesis’. Mboweni has long been put forward as a potential contender by many who have been impressed by his governorship of the Reserve Bank. It’s a logical choice considering that Trevor Manuel still insists he doesn’t want the top job (which we’re still in denial about by the way), as people look to the next ‘fiscally conservative’ ANC politician in line. Should it be absolutely certain that Manuel has no chance of attaining leadership of the ANC, and therefore leasdership of the country, then I don’t see any obvious reasons why Mboweni would be an unsuitable candidate.

A more suprising choice, in a piece authored by veteran business journalist Alec Hogg, is Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula. Alec gushes over Nqakula saying that ‘Like [Trevor] Manuel, the latent talent is obvious.’ and claims that those within the ANC consider him a very serious contender.

Now what’s interesting about Nqakula is that he is Chairman of the SACP which means that the SACP should be putting their support behind him instead of Jacob Zuma.

In what can only cap off a controversial day, Trevor Manuel has claimed that he has no desire to be president as he “loved his freedom too much to take up the country’s top post” although he will gladly continue to serve as Finance Minister.

Now long time readers will know we are Manuel supporters here at Politics.za so this makes us kind of sad. However there might still be hope! Manuel states that currently the president’s security has to literally “send out dogs and that just does not fit in with my lifestyle”. Well you can still be president and not send out dogs… right? Right?!?

The following two press releases were sent to me today in the daily speeches and statements digest sent out by government:

• T Mbeki to depart for Brazil for India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) summit
  
• T Mbeki arrives in Brazil ahead of IBSA Summit

I’m suprised we didn’t see the following press releases as well to keep us informed as the Chief flew over the Atlantic:

• T Mbeki orders chicken over fish for inflight meal
• T Mbeki stretches legs, makes statement encouraging others to avoid deep vein thrombosis
• T Mbeki dozes off during screening of Schwarzenegger classic ‘Commando’