In his first hundred days in government, Mandela held meetings to guide the ministers or get their support for positions he held. He maintained a continuous interest in matters concerning peace, violence and stability. As Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma observes, ‘I think for me he was more engaged at the beginning, but maybe it was because I engaged him more at the beginning because I myself was not experienced.’* But despite that lack of experience, Dlamini-Zuma had a burning ambition to make a dent in the tobacco industry by enacting legislation that outlawed smoking in public places and amenities. Measures were also quite advanced to set up a medical school in Durban, the Nkosi Albert Luthuli Hospital. These two initiatives stuck in Deputy President de Klerk’s craw.
‘De Klerk,’ Dlamini-Zuma remembers,
called me to his office to say, ‘You must stop this nonsense of tobacco because it’s going to put the farmers out of work and it is not necessary.’ Then he told me that I must build the Pretoria hospital. So I said to him, ‘Well the first one I have to build is the medical school here [Durban], because King Edward [VIII Hospital] is a mess and its training of medical students is actually a disgrace.’ There was a report of an investigation that his own government had done, [which said that] King Edward was not fit to train medical students, but he had not done anything. So that was the first hospital I must build. He told me, well, Pretoria is Afrikaner heritage and he is going to fight for it in cabinet, and I said, ‘It’s fine, you can fight for it.’ I didn’t tell Tata [Mandela] because I didn’t think it was necessary.† On the tobacco thing, I told him that I was the minister of health and I had the responsibility for the health of the country – farmers could plant other things; there’s no land in South Africa that can only grow tobacco. We will have programmes together with the minister of agriculture to help farmers shift from tobacco to other crops.
I didn’t tell Tata – I don’t know who told him – I told some colleagues but didn’t tell him as I didn’t think it was necessary. But one day he called me in and said, ‘I hear that De Klerk called you in and said these things?’ I said yes. He said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I said, ‘I didn’t think it was something I needed to involve you in, I didn’t need your decision on anything.’ Then he said, ‘No, you must tell me if he calls you again, but I have told him that he must never do that; he must never call my ministers and tell them whatever.’ So he was quite angry with De Klerk, and intervened.
For me he was really a pillar of strength in terms of being able to do the things that were maybe sometimes controversial.17
Mandela’s tendency to canvass for views outside conventional circles was perhaps controversial. He didn’t hesitate to call to a meeting anyone he deemed suitable to throw light onto a subject. These could be ministers, representatives or leaders of sectors of society, or even heads of state. Judge Kriegler observed how Mandela would often call people himself, rather than relying on his assistants to do so, sometimes catching those close to him unawares. This gravitational pull towards people was mutual; people from all corners of society wished to interact with him and vice versa. This in turn gave him an insight into the mood of the public.
Mary Mxadana, Mandela’s private secretary, remarked on his relationship with the public, any public, at home or abroad. ‘He’s not only an ordinary president of a country,’ she said, ‘but he’s a renowned leader, so everyone wants to have his time.’ When he was supposed to be resting, unless it was in a place without a phone, and his cell phone was unavailable, ‘he would start calling people all over the world’.18
Leaders all over the world had borne witness to his greatest moment of triumph, his inauguration, and he felt confident enough to call upon them for support or keep them apprised of developments. He was at the head of a country, which, by all accounts, was on the tip of everyone’s tongue. For a whole year, Mandela’s ascendance to power and the destinies of the ‘new South Africa’ – a phrase that gained instant currency – preoccupied the media and eclipsed reports of the Rwandan genocide.
The world watched and asked questions, wondering about the strategies that Mandela would develop in order to govern. What were the bases of the policies that he and the ANC were proposing? For instance, in a television interview in 1994, the American news anchor Charlayne Hunter-Gault asked Mandela, ‘What kind of president will you be?’
‘Our approach,’ Mandela answered, ‘has already been demonstrated in the course of this campaign. We do not believe in taking decisions on top [sic] and then sending them down to the masses of the people. We have evolved the strategy of the People’s Forum where it is the masses of the people who are telling us what they want, what their concerns are, what their demands are. And out of those demands from the masses of the people themselves we have now prepared what we call the Reconstruction and Development Programme [RDP], which is going to create jobs, build houses, provide education facilities, electricity and so on.’
He was asked further how he planned to get those programmes pushed through; whether it would be through legislation, delegation of authority to cabinet ministers – would he ‘let them push it’ – or would he be ‘in there yourself’?
Mandela said: ‘I have to be interested in almost every detail, but of course it’s difficult to achieve that result where you have to look into the activities of every department in detail. It is sufficient to lay down a framework, and all departments, all cabinet ministers, should work within that framework, and your task is that of supervising and sometimes getting involved in the actual operations of a department depending on the importance of the national issue. I have addressed the leadership of the Dutch Reformed Church and a wide range of agricultural organisations, which are predominantly Afrikaners, and they have given us their overwhelming support – everybody in this country wants peace, wants security for his family and his children, and they want to start the work of building a new South Africa.’19
* * *
But how did Mandela form the first cabinet of the post-apartheid, democratic and representative government in 1994? What empowered him? What made him know that the time was ripe for the ANC to take its seat as the majority party in government? The answer lay in Mandela’s faith in the ANC’s policy documents.
‘Preparing to govern,’ he writes, ‘was not only confined to mobilising the international community. It had an internal aspect as well, which was contained, among other things, in the document Ready to Govern: ANC Policy Guidelines for a Democratic South Africa adopted at the National Conference, 28 to 31 May 1992.
‘The policy document stated that it was necessary to dwell on the problems which would be faced by the first government which would be elected under a new democratic constitution. This would help create an understanding of the magnitude of tasks involved in transforming our country into one where everyone could enjoy a basic standard of living combined with peace and security. Problems would not be solved overnight and there would be no quick or easy solutions. The problems ran deep and the resources were limited.
‘Right on top of the agenda were the basic principles of a democratic constitution for South Africa. The will of the people should be expressed by their democratically elected representatives in periodic free and fair elections. It was these elected representatives who would adopt a constitution, which should be the highest law of the land, guaranteeing their basic rights.
‘The document declared that South Africa would be a unitary state in which there would be a government at local, regional and national levels. The Bill of Rights and principles of non-racialism, non-sexism and democratic accountability should apply at all these levels of government.
‘The structure of government would consist of the National Assembly and which would be elected by universal suffrage on a common voters roll according to proportional representation. It would also have a senate representative of regions and be directly elected, and have the power of review, refer and delay legislation.
‘The executive would consist of a head of state w
ho would be a President with both ceremonial and executive powers. The President would be elected by the National Assembly. He or she would have a fixed term of office and be available for re-election only once. The President would appoint and supervise the functioning of the Cabinet, acting through a Prime Minister (subsequently changed to a deputy President) who would be directly accountable to the President and responsible to the National Assembly.
‘The Bill of Rights would be binding upon the State and organs of government at all levels, and where appropriate, on social institutions and persons. It would be enforced by the courts, headed by a separate, newly created constitutional court, which would have the task of upholding the fundamental rights and freedoms of all citizens against the state and anybody or person seeking to deny those rights.
‘The judges would be independent, and would consist of men and women drawn from all sections of the community on the basis of their integrity, skills, life experience and wisdom. The Bill of Rights would guarantee language and cultural rights; it would acknowledge the importance of religion in our community; it would respect the diversity of faith and give guarantees of freedom of religion. The Bill of Rights would protect the rights of children, disabled persons, women, the right of workers to set up independent trade unions, their right to engage in collective bargaining and their right to strike.
‘The ANC declared itself against capital punishment, and would seek it outlawed in the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights would protect the right to have a home and family and property rights. It would affirm the rights of all persons to have access to basic educational, health and welfare services.
‘There was strong support in the country for the idea of affirmative action, which meant special measures to enable persons discriminated against on grounds of colour, gender and disability to break into fields from which they have been excluded by past discrimination.
‘The whole of the civil service would have to be opened up so as to make it a truly South African civil service, and not the administration of a racial minority. It would be accountable to Parliament and the local community it serves.
‘There would be a non-racial and non-sexist defence and police force, and a prison service comprising personnel that are well trained, disciplined, humane and loyal to the constitution.
‘There would be rule of law in which all South Africans would be free to participate either directly or through their representatives in the law-making bodies, without discrimination based on race, colour, creed or religion.
‘As far as personal security and crime, the first priority was to address the crime-producing conditions that prevailed in our society. The ANC declared that there would be no respect for the institutions that enforce law and order unless the people respect the law. They would do so if the laws were just and if they participated both in their making and enforcement. A just criminal system would enhance respect for the courts and obedience of the law.
‘This,’ Mandela states, ‘is the summary of a comprehensive and well-considered statement of fundamental principles of government by erstwhile “terrorists”, who had no previous training or experience whatsoever in governance.’20
One of those erstwhile terrorists was Tito Mboweni, the country’s future minister of labour who, with Saki Macozoma, had been part of the team accompanying Mandela at the World Economic Forum [WEF] in Davos in 1992.* There, they edited down to a few talking points a lengthy speech prepared for Nelson Mandela, making the point that the latter was to appear in a panel with De Klerk and Buthelezi and not in a rally. Even though they tried to prevail on Mandela to tone down the rhetoric on nationalisation, he did speak to other political leaders during dinner about the ANC’s economic plans, extolling the virtues of state intervention. While there, Li Peng, the premier of China, asked the chairperson of the WEF to arrange a meeting with Mandela, at which he said that China’s experience suggested that nationalisation would be an error.21 The prime minister of Vietnam, also at the forum, conveyed a similar message.
Hearing this, Madiba advised the ANC team that they should ‘forget this nationalisation thing, [and] focus on the basic needs of our people’. According to Mboweni, immediately the team returned to South Africa they presented their report and ‘had long conversations’ which then led to the Nasrec conference, which came out with Ready to Govern.22
* * *
The framework for a five-year GNU, which guaranteed participation of any party gaining over 10 per cent in the election, was set out in the principles enshrined in the interim constitution of 1993. The April 1994 election results dictated the composition of the first cabinet. It consisted of an ANC president and two deputy presidents – one ANC and one National Party – a permutation that would respectively give the cabinet eighteen ANC, six National Party and three IFP ministers.
But before Mandela had to decide on the composition of the cabinet, he and the ANC had to make another decision about a leadership position. His belief was that structures of governance had to reflect the country’s diversity. This was informed by a need to set straight the perception of the ANC as a narrow, nationalistic organisation. In its eighty-second year, the ANC had undergone many transformations. From a Christian-oriented organisation of non-violent petitioners through to the torrid forties when the Youth League had given it formidable force, and all the way to the sixties when it embraced armed struggle, it had drawn strength from its non-racial and non-sexist character. It had largely absorbed vicious body blows administered by the apartheid state in the form of States of Emergency and violence and even cross-border raids in exile – and its survival rested on the sacrifices of certain individuals. Most important of these were Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo, whom Mandela could trust with his life. He remembers this.
‘Oliver Reginald Tambo,’ he writes, ‘fondly referred to as OR by his comrades, a humble and brilliant lawyer and devout Christian, who became head of the ANC when Chief Luthuli passed away, was also a skilful and respected leader, who raised the organisation to a position of strength and influence it had never reached before.
‘It is a phenomenal leader who can succeed in exile to keep united a vast multi-racial organisation with divergent schools of thought, with a membership deployed in distant continents, and a youth seething with anger at the repression of their people; a youth who believe that anger alone without resources and proper planning can help to overthrow a racist regime.
‘OR achieved all this. To political and common law prisoners inside the country, to foreign freedom fighters, diplomats, Heads of States, OR was acknowledged as a shining example of a smart and balanced leader who was sure to help restore the dignity of the oppressed people and put their destiny firmly in their hands.
‘He was a hard and diligent worker who never spared himself, and who literally was on duty twenty-four hours a day throughout the year without taking any holiday. His wife, Adelaide, tells the story of how OR worked throughout the night. When he saw her dressed and leaving the house, he asked where she was going to at night.
‘It was probably this heavy schedule which contributed to the breakdown of his health. He suffered a stroke, which left him partially paralysed. The officials discussed his position, and were all keen that he should make his enormous wisdom and experience available formally to the organisation. We accordingly appointed him National Chairperson, a position he held until his death in 1993.
‘OR’s death was like the falling of a giant oak tree, which had stood there for ages dominating the vicinity and beautifying the entire landscape and attracting everything around, people and animals alike. It was the end of an era of a remarkable leader with strong and religious convictions, an accomplished mathematician and musician who was peerless in his commitment to the liberation of his people.
‘The officials then agreed that Professor Kader Asmal, a knowledgeable, assertive and lucid thinker, who later became Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry, and then Minister of Education, should succeed OR. His grasp of almo
st all problems discussed in the Cabinet earned him the distinction of being referred to as Minister of All Portfolios. We all felt that his appointment would help to reverse the wrong notion that the ANC was an ethnic organisation.*
‘I then briefed members of the National Working Committee one by one on the recommendations of the officials. With one exception, all of them accepted that recommendation.
‘Shortly thereafter, one of the officials returned and confidentially whispered to me that although the members of the NWC had expressly agreed to the recommendation, they had turned against it, and preferred Thabo instead of Kader.
‘The episode worried me because it led to negative speculation among Comrades. When people agree to an important proposal and later change [their minds] without raising the matter with you again, then it becomes difficult to challenge the accusation that they had objections which they did not have the courage to put to you; that they knew that the basis of their somersault was against the policy of the organisation.
‘But all of them were well qualified and dependable leaders who had endured a succession of terrible ordeals in their determination to free their country. The episode never affected my confidence in them. The refusal to back Kader was, notwithstanding everything, a democratic one and we accepted it without reservation.’23
Mandela consulted widely before the cabinet was finalised. He looked at the contribution of people with track records in structures such as the National Reception Committee and who had ended up in the TEC. He then asked Mbeki, because ‘Thabo had spent many years in exile and had also interacted with comrades inside the country; he had a better knowledge than me of people best qualified to serve in the Cabinet’.24
And so followed a conversation that Thabo Mbeki remembers vividly:
Madiba said … ‘Can you prepare a list – names and portfolios – from among ourselves.’ It must have meant that we knew already what percentage of the cabinet would be constituted by ourselves [in the ANC], it was a specific number, because remember there was the National Party and the IFP … So we sat in [Sydney Mufamadi’s] flat across the road [and] prepared a list of names and places. And he said to me, ‘Prepare a proposal and … leave out the position of deputy president; I will deal with that from our side.’ So we prepared the list, names and portfolios, ministers and deputy ministers. I can’t recall that it had anything to do with what people had done in the TEC or whatever. It was just saying, like Steve Tshwete became minister of sport and recreation because I knew about his passion for sport – rugby player and all that before he went to jail – while he was in jail, so there was that sort of consideration, that this would be a person who would really pay attention to this particular portfolio because of his particular interest.
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