Thabo Mbeki Biography. He was a teacher and member of the African National Congress (ANC) since the age of 14, he was also the 9th South African president to succeed Nelson Mandela , he has a Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Sussex.
During the apartheid era, he was taken prisoner and had to spend several years in exile in the United Kingdom, returning to his country after the liberation of Nelson Mandela.
Summary of Thabo Mbeki Biography.
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- 1 Biographical synthesis
- 1 Political career
- 2 Rejection against HIV
- 3 Path to the presidency
- 4 Resignation
- 2 Sources
Biographical synthesis
Political career
Since the age of 14, Mbeki has been a member of the CNA, being its representative abroad since 1967 . He was appointed head of the CNA’s information office in 1984 and of its international affairs office in 1989 . He was elect deputy of South Africa in May 1994 when elections with universal suffrage were achieved. He is the successor of Nelson Mandela as president of the ANC in December 1997 and as President of the Republic in 1999 (taking office on June 16 ); was reelected for a second term in April 2004. Mbeki has led the creation of the NEPAD and African Union economic program and has been highly influential in the peace negotiations in Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It has been one of the standard bearers in the dissemination of the concept of the African Renaissance. In September 2008, he coerced the leader of the liberation of neighboring Zimbabwe Morgan Tsvangirai of the MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) to accept a national unity agreement with President Robert Mugabe , considered by his people a dictator and responsible for countless crimes against the humanity.
Rejection against HIV
During his tenure, Thabo Mbeki rejected the scientific consensus that AIDS is caused by a virus , HIV , and that antiretroviral drugs can save the lives of HIV-positive people. Instead, he embraced the views of a small group of dissident scientists, who suggested other causes for AIDS. Mbeki continued to hold this opinion despite the evidence against her. Every time someone – including Nelson Mandela – publicly questioned Mbeki’s views, his supporters denounced him viciously. While neighboring countries Botswana and Namibia, provided antiretrovirals to most of their HIV-infected citizens, this was not the case in Mbeki-ruled South Africa . A team of researchers from Harvard University has studied the consequences of this policy. Using conservative assumptions, he estimates that if the South African government had provided the right drugs to both AIDS patients and pregnant women at risk of infecting their babies, 365,000 premature deaths would have been prevented.
Path to the presidency
Thabo Meki was promoted to the leadership of the ANC’s Information and Publicity Department, and from this civil office he developed a successful public relations campaign that contributed to exacerbating the international isolation of the Government of Bhota, whose program of timid political reforms initiated in 1983 was condemned without palliative to keep intact the legal scaffolding that turned the 20 million black South Africans (who were but the offspring of the indigenous population) into third-class citizens, disenfranchised, marginalized and exploited, if not repressed at gunpoint.
But at the same time, as a member of the party’s Political and Military Council, Mbeki planned a campaign of sabotage and strikes that sought to put the regime on the ropes and bare it before the world in its stubborn and implacable nature, in order to, already in a second phase, lead it to a negotiating table, following the decolonizing example of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia. Within this strategy, Mbeki probed the cooperation with the small liberal white parties opposed to the rule of NP and apartheid, which were to merge on the eve of the legislative elections of September 1989 (the last ones in which blacks could not participate), giving rise to the Democratic Party (DP), and also to the business and financial class, which was very concerned about the impact of international sanctions.
Progressively inclined to possibilism and showing no little patience, Mbeki worked with Tambo and the rest of the ANC staff in exile for dialogue with the Bhota government, which in 1986 unleashed another terrible wave of repression against the densely populated suburbs of Johannesburg, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. At the same time, from his cell and a little at his own risk, Mandela undertook with his jailers a series of communications that at first were trial and error and secret, but which were later to be produced publicly and at the highest level, allowing to intuit a negotiated outcome. of the conflict.
Resignation
The African National Congress requested his resignation for having conspired against the leader of the formation, Jacob Zuma, on September 20 , 2008 , to be prosecuted for corruption. Zuma had been removed as Vice President in 2005 after a financial adviser from his department was indicted. Zuma was exonerated of liability by the Petermaritzburg High Court on September 12 , 2008. The infighting within the African National Congress broke out in December 2007 when Zuma prevailed over Mbeki. Mbeki denied the accusations and described them as insults, without support in proven facts. However, he agreed to resign before the end of his term. He was replaced by Kgalema Motlanthe, Vice President of the African National Congress on [September 25]] 2008 .
