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Hopes were pinned on more than Mandela, however, as the country’s successful“negotiated revolution” raised hopes that the model itself could be emulatedelsewhere in Africa. 381 The general warmth and sense of goodwill that attendedSouth Africa’s emergence from decades of isolation obscured the tensions thatwould be inherent in a position of international messianism, and which would raisethorny challenges for the country’s political leadership for some years afterward.These tensions mainly revolved around what the ‘national interest’ would comprise.For example, would ‘national development’ take precedence over repaying debtsincurred by the apartheid state? In addition, there was the debate between thecompeting normative regimes of the global human rights discourse on one hand,and African/liberation movement solidarity, on the other. In the final analysis, thisdebate concerned who the ultimate referents of national security doctrines were,states or people. Thus, while there was great expectation, there still remained thequestions of which norms to adopt, and the difficult discussion of whichcommitments would take precedence was continually postponed.At an institutional level, it has been well-documented how little the executive wasaccountable to the legislature as Mandela’s presidency wore on. This did not presentmuch of a change from the pre-1994 scenario, however. As noted by RaymondSuttner, former chair of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Foreign Affairs(1994-1997), the executive’s foreign policy decisions under apartheid were highlyinsulated from parliamentary scrutiny and input. This was owing to a tradition ofexclusive foreign policymaking, involving the Head of Government and the ForeignMinister; as well as the secrecy that attended South Africa’s foreign policy decisionsin the dying days of apartheid. Suttner linked the institutional weaknesses anddisjuncture during Mandela’s presidency to the incoherent foreign policy thatresulted:The failure to talk to one another before important decisions makes it harder tohave good relations [between the Foreign Ministry and Parliament]. It impedes thetype of common reflection on policy that is needed to move away from ad hocapproaches to foreign relations. 382381 The Economist, “Good neighbour”, August 13 th 1994: 50.382 Raymond Suttner, “Parliament and Foreign Policy in South Africa Today”, inParliaments and Foreign Policy: The International and South African Experience.Conference Report (University of the Western Cape: Centre for Southern AfricanStudies, 1995): 10.163