Mbeki 'still a valuable asset'
by Mphatjie Monareng
2009-07-03 14:12
The Mo Ibrahim Foundation, a brainchild of the Sudanese-born entrepreneur, Mo Ibrahim, gives away an annual cash prize of $5m to a former African head of state who has best served his or her country while in power.
The $5m is awarded to the winner annually over a period of 10 years and a further $200 000 is paid annually for life thereafter.
Last year, the winner of the prize was Festus Mogae, the former president of Botswana. This year, there should be only one candidate for the prize: Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa.
Despite efforts to underplay and scandalise his legacy, many of us in South Africa and Africa will remember Mbeki as a man who dedicated his life to the service of his country and continent - sometimes at great personal cost to himself.
Mbeki was a democrat at heart, and this was best demonstrated when he put the interests of the country above his own personal interests when he surrendered power after he was "recalled" by the post-Polokwane ANC, under the leadership of Jacob Zuma.
Throughout his years in government, Mbeki never displayed signs of seeking personal gratification. He refused to put up hollow performances in front of the media. He was most definitely not in the same league with the headline-seekers at the helm of today's government.
Many would point to Mbeki's so-called "quiet diplomacy" towards Zimbabwe and his alleged "Aids denialism" to prove that our government under his leadership was a monumental failure at best and a complicit killer at worst.
The performance of our future presidents, including Zuma, on these two contentious subjects will give us a credible yardstick against which we can judge Mbeki. So far, we are yet to see a reasonable alternative to "quiet diplomacy".
Mbeki deserves to be awarded the $5m prize this year; and I am confident that he will use the money wisely to dispatch his scarce knowledge and vision of a prosperous, free and democratic African continent.
Mbeki is still a valuable asset to the nation and to the continent, and the sooner the new bosses at Lithuli and Cosatu houses realise this and stop their vilification campaign against the man, the better.
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