Moeletsi Mbeki says SADC fears emergence of democracy in Zim

By Tererai Karimakwenda
19 February, 2008

Moeletsi Mbeki, the outspoken brother of South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki, this week revealed why he believes that the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) has continued to support Robert Mugabe, despite his obvious failures and their negative effect on the region. The younger Mbeki is currently the deputy chairperson of the South African Institute of International Affairs, an independent think tank based at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg.

Writing in The Sunday Tribune in South Africa, Mbeki said he believes that Zimbabwe's neighbours are “mollycoddling”Mugabe because they have short-sighted leadership and a fear of the more democratic political forces that are emerging in Zimbabwe. He wrote that the emergence of these “new, well-organised, cosmopolitan and vocal constituencies that were no longer interested in the politics of race, but in the accountability of governance, has struck fear in the hearts of established rulers, not only in Zimbabwe, but in the whole of Southern Africa.”

Mbeki’s brother Thabo, who was appointed the regional mediator on the Zimbabwe crisis, was criticised for refusing to publicly acknowledge that Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF are responsible for the country’s drastic decline due to their failed policies. His mediation efforts were also dismissed as being favourable to Mugabe and the ruling party.

Moeletsi Mbeki points to the emergence of the MDC in Zimbabwe as a threat to regional dictators because the party’s key objectives were to fight for a more democratic constitution, to combat corruption and to re-organise the grossly mismanaged national economy. Accountable leadership is also part of the agenda. Mbeki believes It is this “fear of fundamental social and political change” that explains the region’s solidarity with ZANU-PF and Mugabe.

He says that 20 years after independence in 1980, Zimbabwe had become a transformed society with new black players prominent in business, mass media, organised labour, civil society and other professions. But the ruling party, ZANU-PF remained unchanged. “In fact, the opposite had happened, it had fossilised”, wrote Moeletsi.

He believes the new black elites simply replaced the former white colonial elites and the exploitation of the black masses has continued. Mbeki says this explains the fear of new parties such as the MDC and also explains the support for the Mugabe regime by SADC states, despite the negative effects Mugabe has caused in neighbouring countries.