Dare Not Linger
Page 12
Mandela made just two changes to Mbeki’s list. He said that Derek Hanekom should be a minister – he believed the fact that he had some knowledge of farming and was Afrikaans would help the government deal with issues relating to Afrikaner farmers – and he said that Joe Slovo should be included. The omission of Slovo’s name had been informed by a view developed during the negotiation period that his full-time leadership was needed in the Communist Party. Hanekom became minister of land affairs and Slovo became minister of housing. Mbeki continues:
Later he came back to me on the deputy president thing, to say, ‘No, I have been consulting about the deputy president business and I had thought that Cyril [Ramaphosa] should be deputy president and the reason for that is because, you see, there is something that we must be sensitive to … you see the problem is what people will say. You had Oliver Tambo as president of the ANC, then I succeeded him as president, and now you…’ – what was I at the time? National Chair of the ANC – ‘… and then you become deputy president. People are going to say, “Look at the Xhosas; the Xhosas are monopolising power,” which is why I wanted Cyril … But everybody refused – I spoke to Walter, I even spoke to Kenneth Kaunda and Nyerere, and all of them, all of them said, “No – sure we understand the sensitivity to this tribal thing, but it doesn’t carry weight; this is your deputy president.”’* So he says, ‘Therefore you must become deputy president. It’s not about you, it’s not because of you; it’s because I have to deal with this sort of thing.’ And I say, ‘That’s OK, Madiba.’ … As I recall … that was the only intervention – three interventions – he made with regard to that cabinet, to get Derek Hanekom, JS and myself.25
Mandela stresses the issue of judicious cabinet selection, when he writes that, under his instruction, Mbeki ‘made sure that all our national groups, as well as the members of the Congress Alliance, were adequately represented.† For good reasons, he left open the position of Deputy President. I approved his recommendation and then briefed, in turn, first the SACP [South African Communist Party], then COSATU [Congress of South African Trade Unions] and last the ANC. I made it clear to all of them that, although I would welcome their comments, the final decision would be mine.
‘A brilliant and loyal comrade, Raymond Suttner, who is now our ambassador in Sweden, reminded me that a previous policy conference had decided that the Cabinet should be elected by a national conference. I summarily rejected such a resolution on the simple ground that, in such a case, members of the Cabinet would be chosen not for merit but for popularity, or because they were supported by a powerful faction.
‘Each member of the alliance had strong objections against some of the proposed candidates, including the candidacy of the late Alfred Nzo, a gifted, disciplined and experienced expert on foreign affairs. There were also objections against Derek Hanekom on the ground that it was unwise to give the land portfolio to a white person. These objections affected others as well. I rejected all these reservations as based not on principle but on purely personal considerations. I presented the list to the officials as recommended by Thabo.*
‘The officials approved all the names without exception. Then there followed a discussion on who would be appointed Deputy President. Two names, Thabo Mbeki and Cyril Ramaphosa, were considered. Ramaphosa had led our team of negotiators to the World Trade Centre [in Kempton Park, north of Johannesburg]. He is an impressive, adroit and persuasive individual and influenced both friend and foe at the Centre. He earned for himself a lot of respect and admiration, and emerged as one of the most powerful figures among the constellation of eminent thinkers.26
‘In his autobiography, The Last Trek: A New Beginning, De Klerk describes Cyril as follows:
The ANC delegation was led by Cyril Ramaphosa, its chief negotiator. Ramaphosa had previously been Secretary General of the National Union of Mineworkers, where he had gained extensive experience in tough negotiations with the Chamber of Mines, which represented South Africa’s large mining companies. Ramaphosa’s large, round head was framed by a beard and receding hair of about the same length. His relaxed manner and convivial expression were contradicted by coldly calculating eyes, which seemed to be searching continuously for the softest spot in the defences of his opponents. His silver tongue and honeyed phrases lulled potential victims, while his arguments relentlessly tightened around them.27
‘Cyril is hailed by men and women inside and outside our organisation as the linchpin in the negotiations, and one of the main architects of the new South Africa. At the 1997 National Conference of the ANC, he was justly rewarded when he received the highest votes for the membership of the National Executive Committee. He was, and still is, a real asset to our organisation.
‘Throughout my political career, I have been haunted by the persistent perception that the ANC was and is a Xhosa organisation, notwithstanding overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I pointed out to the officials that Oliver Tambo, Thabo Mbeki and myself come from the same ethnic group. Would we not reinforce that false perception if Thabo became deputy? I asked. Should we not rather consider for this position Cyril, an equally gifted and respected person who came from the Northern part of our country?
‘I readily conceded that Thabo was well qualified for this position and that his knowledge of the continent and diplomatic affairs far exceeded that of Cyril. But I insisted that the latter had a lot of clout and pull internationally; in particular with trade unions, and on the vast majority of opinion makers, especially on those who took part in the negotiations.
‘Notwithstanding my argument,’ Mandela laments, ‘the officials were not convinced. They insisted that the general public would accept that, in choosing Thabo, the ANC was guided by merit and not tribal considerations. On the contrary, my concern was not based purely on merit, but on the false perception I felt it was our duty to correct.’28
Although Mandela had intended to announce the appointments only after the inauguration, his hand was forced by the media, which had got wind of the debate around the position of the deputy president, with the announcement of the cabinet being made on 6 May 1994. It was an incomplete list and some of the names and their corresponding portfolios would later be changed; by then, too, a decision had been made – after some heated debate – to include a minister without portfolio, with responsibility for the RDP.
Setting up the cabinet was not uncontentious, with De Klerk piqued at inadequate consultation in the allocation of some portfolios. However, Mandela’s personal touch in managing the composition of the cabinet was unmistakable. Some of the processes, appearing haphazard at their genesis, ended up bearing fruit. A few of the cogs in the wheel of the machine geared to advance Mandela’s dream were blithely unaware of their importance and how their own lives would change. Manuel recalled how, when he was still part of the leadership core in the Western Cape in 1992, he was approached by Cyril Ramaphosa, the secretary general of the ANC.
Ramaphosa told Manuel that Mandela wanted him to head the Department of Economic Planning, an important policy division of the ANC. Manuel, aware of his own lack of training in economics, demurred, pointing out that he had been assigned to work on health issues. Ramaphosa told him bluntly that there were many doctors in the ANC. ‘Trevor,’ he continued, ‘just be clear, this is not a negotiation between you and I; I am conveying a message.’29
That was that. Before long, Manuel was accompanying Mandela on foreign missions, such as the 1993 trip to the US when, addressing the United Nations, Mandela said that sufficient progress had been made for sanctions against South Africa to be lifted.
‘Part of what he was doing, again,’ Manuel says, ‘was relationship building, but there was also a very strong posture. He would take delegations along. For instance, a motley crew of us went along to Taiwan, including Pallo [Jordan], [Thomas] Nkobi of course [and] Joe Modise,’ to ‘secure training, and money … but also exposing [us] to different political systems and listening to what we were doing.* He believed in handing over to the youn
g people and preparing them for more intricate responsibilities.’30
At some of the investor conferences, which brought together corporate leaders, industry experts and institutional investors in hallowed halls of major world capitals, Mandela would say: ‘We’ve got these young people like Trevor Manuel here. I’d like him to speak to you; I’d like him to answer the questions after I’ve spoken.’31
It was the same thing with Valli Moosa, who, given his involvement in the negotiations, ended up deputising Roelf Meyer, the first minister of constitutional development and provincial affairs in Mandela’s cabinet. Mufamadi, who headed up the peace process, was ultimately destined to become the minister of police, and Joe Modise, who came through MK and the military headquarters of the ANC, became the minister of defence.
Reflecting on all these developments, which pointed to Mandela’s strategic thinking, Manuel said, ‘I think that by and large those interactions in Madiba’s mind were creating early in the process, for want of a better word, a kind of shadow cabinet of people who were assigned certain responsibilities. That process, I think, had a profound impact on the way in which he saw certain things.’32
Among the portfolios that featured in discussions, both within the ANC and with De Klerk, was the finance ministry, which ended with an agreement that Derek Keys should continue in his current position as finance minister.† Even though finance was one of the six portfolios to which the National Party was entitled, it was also agreed that this key post should not be identified with any specific party.33 There were two considerations – experience and worries about how economic decision makers – local African and international – might react. South Africa was still a new entity with untested systems. Any changes – especially the resignation of a trusted finance minister – could have had a negative effect on the markets.
‘There are certain positions we will not fight for now, because the country may not be ready for it,’ his colleagues remember Mandela saying. He was referring to a number of posts, including the respective heads of the Reserve Bank and the Public Service Commission.34
Mandela met twice with De Klerk to discuss the cabinet, first in Pretoria and then in Cape Town, on the evening of the day that the ANC released its first list of ministers, much to De Klerk’s unhappiness. According to De Klerk’s memoirs, he was shocked at the ANC’s announcements ‘without making the slightest effort to consult me beforehand’ – as was stipulated in section 82 of the interim constitution – and the abrogation of a previous agreement of a National Party security portfolio.35 Queried about how all three security portfolios were assigned to the ANC, Mandela answered that he had been overruled by the organisation.36
What they agreed regarding the assignment of ministers and deputy ministers to the remaining portfolios required some changes in the scope of portfolios allocated to the ANC. That included shifting Asmal from constitutional development to water affairs and forestry, something he learned about only on the day he was sworn in as minister.37
Having conducted comprehensive horse trading with the major negotiating parties – especially the National Party and the IFP – Mandela was convinced that the cabinet was both strong and representative of the people of South Africa. He even broached the question of smaller parties participating in government, holding discussions with the PAC (Pan Africanist Congress of Azania), Democratic Party, Conservative Party and Freedom Front. When Mandela came out of prison, De Klerk had proposed that a troika of National Party, ANC and IFP should negotiate South Africa’s future, a notion that Mandela and the ANC had rejected in favour of an inclusive approach. Now that the cabinet was in place, Mandela was therefore exasperated at suggestions that it was not fully representative.
‘Soon after the formation of the Government of National Unity,’ he writes, ‘and long before Deputy President De Klerk voluntarily pulled out of the Government of National Unity, the ANC was repeatedly accused of racism, and of promoting the interests of Africans only, and of neglecting those of the minorities. There are still public figures in our country – diehards – who are still peddling this ignoble propaganda.
‘I have deliberately set out in full the names of members of the cabinet of the Government of National Unity.* Those who have respect for truth and for themselves, irrespective of their background, will refrain from tarnishing their own image by endorsing what is clearly a senseless propaganda by those who have no credible alternative policy to that of the ANC.
‘The subterfuge becomes even more glaring when you discover that, apart from Derek Keys and Abe Williams, the latter a member of the Coloured community, the remaining five Cabinet members of Mr De Klerk’s National Party were all White and Afrikaner. There was no African nor Indian. Yet all these national groups formed part of the ANC members of the Cabinet. Out of nineteen, there were seven members of the minorities.
‘The domination of Whites in the National Assembly in 1994 was equally striking. Out of two hundred and fifty-six ANC members in the National Assembly, eighty-two represented Coloureds, Indians and Whites.
‘Out of eighty members of the National Party, there were eleven Africans, nine Coloureds, four Indians; a total of twenty-four as against fifty-six Whites – more than double the number of other groups.’38
A younger and more impulsive Mandela might well have carried on itemising the instances of gross insincerity that informed the ‘diehards’ who were ‘still peddling this ignoble propaganda’. He would have extolled the ANC’s magnanimity in having accommodated the National Party, whose policies were the root cause of untold misery for the black majority. Satisfying as this might have been to his compatriots, and convinced as he was of the rightness of his cause, Mandela knew that it ageould have sent a wrong signal. He was in control and certainly not one for playing the martyr.
He was seventy-five years old and would need all his stamina and astuteness to convert his personal charisma into durable political currency. While the official opposition had grudgingly agreed to participate in the GNU, there were still pockets of resistance within their ranks who saw this power sharing as capitulation to the ANC. On the other side of the same coin were elements within the ANC, for instance Harry Gwala and his hard-line followers, who felt that the sacrifices made to wrest power from the Pretoria regime were ill served by the architecture of the new order.
For Mandela, however, the urgent task was to ensure that the building blocks towards the construction of the new democracy were in place. He had to acquaint himself with the knowledge that he would be president, a head of state of a complicated country, home to an even more complicated polity. It had all moved with a snarling swiftness, from prison to freedom and thence to the highest position in the country. Like someone catapulted to the head of a huge family following the death of a patriarch, Mandela had to go through some rite of passage, in this instance Parliament, for his installation to be formalised.
CHAPTER FIVE
National Unity
Nelson Mandela and the men and women who assembled in Parliament on 9 May 1994 to be sworn in as members of Parliament gave full, if diverse, expression to the changes being wrought in the new, democratic South Africa. The ambience of the parliamentary precinct, once staid and forbidding and dominated by dark-suited white men, was one of muted celebration; something huge straining to break out.1 Then Albertina Sisulu, herself a struggle veteran and leader, rose to nominate Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela as South Africa’s first democratically elected president.*
Tears and cheers broke out as the assembly and the public gallery rose as one, cheering a smiling, waving Mandela to his brown leather bench. It had once been the seat of President F. W. de Klerk, who just more than four years earlier had announced, in the same chamber, that he would free the man who had served more than twenty-seven years in jail. MPs led the rhythmic clapping while an imbongi (praise singer) changed Parliament forever, chanting the praises of the new president in his mother tongue of isiXhosa.
* * *
Almost
everyone who worked with Mandela at the beginning of the first post-apartheid administration, from gardener to cabinet minister, agrees that he had special qualities and, in turn, expected others to match them. Notoriously unable to take no for an answer, he worked hard to obviate any possibility of someone rejecting his offer.
Trevor Manuel, who at the time was minister of trade and industry, provides a somewhat droll note to the otherwise serious, and at times nerve-racking, drama of establishing the first democratic cabinet under President Mandela in 1994.
Mandela hosted a state banquet for François Mitterrand, then president of France, on the evening of 4 July 1994, at the Mount Nelson Hotel in Cape Town. Two days earlier, back in Pretoria, the president had summoned Manuel to a meeting, which also involved Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, Minister of Labour Tito Mboweni and Alec Erwin from the Reconstruction and Development Programme, where he broke the news that Derek Keys was resigning his post as minister of finance.*
Manuel recalls Mandela saying with characteristic candour, ‘Look, I’ve been talking to people, and I don’t think the country and the world and white people, in particular, are ready for an ANC finance minister. I hope that you agree with me. I thought I must tell you this and ask if you have any suggestions for a finance minister.’ When there were none, Mandela continued: ‘I’ve been thinking about this fellow Chris Liebenberg.† He is retired from … [Ned]bank; he’s been my banker, he’s been the ANC’s banker, he’s a very good man. White business will really support him. Do you have any difficulty with him?’ No one had difficulties. Mandela said, ‘Thank you very much, let’s have some tea.’2