Johannesburg — Bewilderment has turned to cynicism, consternation - and in some quarters outright condemnation - in South Africa, after a top-level allegation from members of the governing African National Congress that there was a plot to harm the president, Thabo Mbeki. Former president Nelson Mandela is among those coming out in support of three prominent businessmen accused of being behind the plot.
The front pages of almost all South African newspapers on Thursday were dominated by the Mbeki 'conspiracy' story. The national daily, the Star's headline read, "'Mbeki plot' rocks ANC".
The leading Afrikaner newspaper, De Beeld asked, "Who is behind the plot?"
Business Day's banner headline reported: "Tshwete's allegations draw fire". This refers to the bombshell dropped by South Africa's Safety and Security Minister, Steve Tshwete, on Tuesday night accusing three leading members of the ANC of plotting to overthrow, and even perhaps physically threaten, President Thabo Mbeki.
The accused -- former ANC secretary-general, Cyril Ramaphosa and two former provincial premiers, Tokyo Sexwale and Mathews Phosa -- have all denied involvement in any plot to topple Mbeki as South Africa's head of state and president of the ANC. Mandela has said he continues to hold all three in "high esteem".
All three men are pursuing careers in business and have moved away from active political involvement. Most people here say openly that the three were pushed out of party politics by Mbeki, who was deputy president to Nelson Mandela, before being elected to succeed him.
On its editorial page, Business Day said, "Mbeki and Tshwete have, in the last few days, undone much, if not all, of the painstaking work to rehabilitate the presidency and the country after last year's lows". The paper described the 'plot' as a "blatant attempt to intimidate Mbeki's prospective challengers".
The country's best-selling tabloid, The Citizen, headlined President Mbeki's response to journalists who questioned him about the conspiracy story: "Tshwete must answer'. The Citizen called the 'plot' story "far-fetched".
South Africa's biggest daily newspaper, The Sowetan, with an overwhelmingly black readership, was the only paper not to lead with what has rapidly become the hottest news item in South Africa.
The story was relegated to the inside page, but the paper ran a cartoon depicting Mbeki pointing a shotgun to his head with 'crazy plot allegations' written on it. The caption read, 'the real threat of harm to the president'.
But it is the weekly Mail & Guardian that has asked the question on the lips or minds of many South Africans. "Is this man fit to rule?". The paper put the same question to the nation several years ago and concluded then that Thabo Mbeki was able to govern his country. Today, the same newspaper has come to a different conclusion.
It describes Mbeki's two years as president of South Africa as 'a disastrous reign'. The Mail & Guardian is the paper that has been most critical of Mbeki's presidency since he succeeded Mandela in 1999.
There are no holds barred in its 26 April edition. "A great party (ANC) is at risk of being turned into the instrument of a man caught up in his own personal rages and with so brittle an ego that he fears evisceration if he retreats on an issue or allows a recognition that he has failed," says the Mail & Guardian of Mbeki. "His 22 months in power have been disastrous. And he has no one to blame but himself."
"Whether in his dealing with the AIDS' crisis - surely the gravest threat ever to confront the country, his timidity over Zimbabwe, or in his dealings with the sensitive matter of race in our politics, he has made worse the disfigured nationhood bequeathed us by apartheid", the paper says. The scathing editorial continued that the government seemed to have reached the conclusion that "to rival Mbeki for leadership of the ANC or the presidency of the country was both murderous and traitorous this is low, low stuff. It is the stuff of the Soviet Union under Josef Stalin or of Malawi under Kamuzu Banda".
The newspaper accuses Mbeki of having taken South Africa across a new threshold with this latest crisis, by allowing the "organs of state security to be deployed in defence of his leadership of the ruling party".
It is this latter transgression, and perceived abuse of power, that has most worried Zwelinzima Vavi, the leader of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). Vavi, whose organization is formally allied to Mbeki's governing African National Congress, echoed earlier concerns that Mbeki and his entourage were misusing state apparatus to carry out political vendettas by using police to probe the alleged plot. The COSATU leader warned Mbeki not to involve the police in fighting his political feuds.
Phosa, Sexwale and Ramaphosa, the three alleged 'plotters', are all respected members of the ANC and former presidential aspirants and therefore potential rivals of Mbeki. Many observers have dismissed the plot theories as a strategy to warn off potential competitors with ambitions to challenge Mbeki's leadership.
Others have dismissed the conspiracy allegations as paranoia by the president and his loyalists, saying that South Africa's current leaders cannot tolerate criticism or competition. Still other analysts have characterized the 'plot' as a presidentially orchestrated campaign.
Cyril Ramaphosa was his party's chief negotiator in the days leading to the transition from apartheid rule to a democratic South Africa and helped to fashion the new non-racial constitution for his country. He was widely tipped as a possible successor to Nelson Mandela but was pipped at the post by Mbeki, who became Mandela's political heir.
Ramaphosa then withdrew from high-profile politics but has since earned more international respect after his appointment as one of only two weapons' inspectors for the conflict in Northern Ireland. Many South Africans mention Ramaphosa's name as a formidable potential political adversary to Mbeki.
"We are sounding a warning that nobody should be tempted to settle a score of a purely political and democratic nature within the structures of the ANC and the alliance by involving the might of the state," Vavi told the state broadcaster, SABC, in an interview on Thursday.
The governing ANC party is clearly split. It has defended its colleagues, Sexwale, Ramaphosa and Phosa, but many ANC members have also come out in support of Mbeki and jumped to the defence of Tshwete and the investigation. "The frivolous allegation that state resources have been utilised to deal with party matters is baseless and devoid of any truth," said an official ANC party statement.
"We have full confidence and trust in Minister Tshwete's capabilities. In executing his duties, the ANC knows him to be even handed and diligent" said the ANC statement, speaking of a need to 'protect the president'.
The African National Congress will meet at the end of next year to choose the person who will head the party -- and automatically become head of state if the ANC wins general elections scheduled in 2004. If Mbeki is removed as party president, he would not be able to lead the ANC into the national poll or retain the presidency of his country for a further five years, bringing him to a constitutional two-term limit.
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Vavi, the trade union leader, deplored as 'irresponsible' the naming of the three ANC men by their colleague, the safety and security minister who targeted them as part of a campaign to undermine President Mbeki. "It puts them at risk and paints them in such a bad light, " Vavi argued, adding that if there was any threat to the physical safety of the president, it should be investigated, but that singling out Ramaphosa, Phosa and Sexwale was premature and unjustified.
The South African Communist Party (SACP), which is also allied to COSATU in a tripartite governing alliance with the ANC, is not impressed by Tshwete's actions. A spokesperson said that the issue of competing for the presidency of the country, and of the ANC, should not be a matter for investigation by the security organs of the state.
The man at the center of the political storm, President Thabo Mbeki, was breezy about the whole affair on Thursday, denying that his government was in any trouble or that he was in any way concerned about the alleged 'sinister conspiracy' against him. "Whatever is being reported, there is no crisis, certainly not within the ANC," Mbeki told reporters. "It may sound very dramatic, but it is not a matter I am worrying about. There is no crisis either for government or for the ANC or anything".
Clearly though, some South Africans are unhappy with Mbeki's presidential style and leadership and believe there is a crisis within the presidency and the governing ANC party. Mathews Phosa, one of the three whose reputation has been attacked by his erstwhile colleague, security minister Tshwete, summed up his frustration in an interview with the BBC. "I think it's crazy....at the end of the day, we want the evidence (for the alleged plot). It's 101 percent political in my view."
