Eric Witte September 22nd, 2008

Yesterday, Kurt wondered how Thabo Mbeki’s resignation as South African president would affect the tenuous power-sharing agreement in neighboring Zimbabwe.   Today we learn that the African National Congress has chosen party deputy Kgalema Motlanthe to serve out the rest of Mbeki’s term, until elections due next April. 

Motlanthe appears to be more than a mere place-holder for ANC leader Jacob Zuma, who is widely tipped to win the coming presidential elections.  Zuma’s faction of the ANC is reported to have favored the current Speaker of Parliament Baleka Mbete for the post of caretaker president and may be disappointed that she was passed over.  Motlanthe is regarded as a party moderate who has tried to be a peacemaker between the Mbeki and Zuma factions.

For years Mbeki has been notoriously soft on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, even as Zimbabwe’s economic implosion has been a drag on the South African economy.  Rival Jacob Zuma, with a background in the labor movement, has shown greater sympathy to Zimbabwe’s current prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, himself a union activist and the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change.  Kgalema Motlanthe also has a labor background, having served as the secretary general of South Africa’s mineworkers union. What do we know about his views on Zimbabwe?  A cursory search reveals the following:

• In 2000, Motlanthe penned a newspaper article in defense of Mugabe’s land redistribution policies, prompting Morgan Tsvangirai to complain: “The ANC’s endorsement of Zanu-PF is counter-productive.  We would have hoped they would have done all in their power to back a free and fair election.”
• Last year, when UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown was threatening to boycott the planned summit between African Union and European Union leaders, Motlanthe argued that the summit should proceed without London and not be “imprisoned and paralysed by dangerous and destructive neo-colonialist ambitions”.
• Motlanthe was one of the South African officials who participated in July talks with the parties in Zimbabwe, pressuring both sides to compromise.

With regard to Zimbabwe, at first glance it appears that South Africa’s new president may be much like its last.

• Uncategorized
• Comments(0)

admin September 22nd, 2008

DPC Senior Associate Iryna Chupryna has written the second issue of “DPC Analyst”, our occasional series of longer analytical pieces.  In “The Ruling Coalition in Ukraine is Dead… What Next?” [PDF], Chupryna argues that Ukrainian political stability requires a new political consensus - one less polarized along regional lines.

• Uncategorized
• Comments(0)