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AP PHOTO/POOL/ADIL BRADLOW/AP/SIPA
that the National Party bequeathed to the ANC, there were tight limits on what the new government had the money to do – without raising taxes or targeting the many highly profitable companies. The first response was the radical stateled Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), pledging to build more houses, schools and clinics. But the position of the wider economy remained parlous as the state deficit worsened while national revenue stayed relatively stagnant. A more pragmatic team led by Mbeki and finance minister Trevor Manuel developed a replacement programme known as the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) plan. As his colleagues debated the merits of these conflicting models, Mandela tried to engineer a consensus. But he and his colleagues failed to win over the trades unions, which opposed the new plan’s proposals to commercialise some stateowned enterprises and relax some of the protection measures that the ANC had promised for workers after 1994. These economicargumentsshowedthelimitsof Mandela’s political influence at home but established the basis for successive governments’moremarket-orientedpolicies. ONE-TERM PRESIDENT, AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE
For both personal and political reasons, Mandela wanted to limit his presidency to one term. He was determined to avoid the freedom-fighter-turned-autocrat syndrome. In several African states, once-popular leaders overstayed their welcome and appointed weak deputies to block any serious challenge. The President Mandela-Deputy President Mbeki government broke that mould. It was a carefully crafted division of labour. After the 1994 elections, Mandela combined his presidential role with that of ambassador-at-large. If anyone was able to convey the philosophy of South Africa’s negotiated transition and national reconciliation, it would be Mandela. South Africa’s foreign diplomats tried to propagate these ideas on conflict resolution and power-sharing. In diplomacy, Mandela’s moral authority rapidly came up against realpolitik. Mandela was staunchly loyal to allies: defending countries such as Cuba and Libya, which contributed to the ANC in the 1980s when most Western governments would not. British Prime Minister Tony Blair and others were initially highly sceptical when Mandela THE AFRICA REPORT
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announced that he would open negotiations with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi over lifting UN sanctions. But they changed their position once Mandela had persuaded Gaddafi to hand over two Libyan men suspected of involvement in the plot to blow up Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988. Yet it was Mandela, using the ANC’s historical link, who opened up negotiations on the trial and then for Gaddafi’s brief re-entry into international diplomacy in the 2000s. That partly explains the South African government’s anger when it was sidelined by Europe’s military campaign against Gaddafi in 2011. There were rows within the ANC about the party receiving funds from undemocratic regimes such as Indonesia under Suharto or Malaysia under Mahathir. The government’s policy shifts on Taiwan proved particularly difficult for Mandela. He had initially insisted that South AfricawouldjointlyrecogniseTaiwanand Beijing. That changed as Beijing stepped up the bidding. By November 1996, Mandela announced his “agonising” decision
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1996, Sharpeville: Mandela signs into law the new constitution, watched by Cyril Ramaphosa
to end diplomatic ties with Taipei, despite its historical role as an important financier of the ANC. However, that same year, Mandela invited the Dalai Lama on an official visit, in spite of the heavy pressure from Beijing. Those ethical dilemmas for South African diplomacy have intensified since the late 1990s and Mandela’s exit from the political scene. The growing power of the Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRICS) club of emerging powers, which South Africa has now joined, both brings together the old alliances that the ANC forged under Tambo and Mandela’s leadership, and is symptomatic of far-reaching geo-political shifts. South Africa is entering an era in international relations when the legacy of Mandela’s moralauthoritywillbe neededmorethan ever for the country’s national identity. ● *William Gumede is author of Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC