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complicates the task of separating clearly the ANC’s foreign policy from SouthAfrica’s foreign policy.The ANC runs a sophisticated network of party-to-party and party to businesscontacts worldwide. Some of these links have been revealed in insalubriouscircumstances, as for example, the ANC’s alleged ‘diplomacy’ in the Iraq ‘Oil forFood’ scandal (as detailed below). Other links are more in line with the party’sprogressive image, such as its membership in the Socialist International (SI), aworldwide organisation of some 170 social democratic, socialist and labourparties. 394 The centre-left orientation of the party also secured the South Africangovernment’s participation in successive Progressive Governance Summits. 395In recent years, especially in light of a number of corruption scandals, such as theinvolvement of an ANC front company, Imvume, in the Iraq Oil for Food scandal,and the allegations of funds derived from wrongdoing in the notorious 1999 armsdeal destined for the ANC, much of this aspect of the party’s relations with theoutside world have been wrapped in an ever tighter veil of secrecy. This hasprompted calls by domestic civil society actors for transparency in the allocation offunds by private donors to political parties, a call that is resisted by the major SouthAfrican political parties, including the ANC.The ANC has conducted diplomacy on the Zimbabwe issue, through direct partycontacts with both ZANU-PF and the opposition Movement for DemocraticChange (MDC). This has formed part of a ‘good cop, bad cop’/ ‘quiet diplomacy’approach under Thabo Mbeki, 396 which nonetheless bore little fruit. This approachwas vindicated to some extent, however, by showing that indeed, the ANC waskeeping channels of communication with Robert Mugabe open by refraining from394 Website of the Socialist International (SI), accessed at:http://www.socialistinternational.org/about.cfm on 30 October, 2010.395 The Progressive Governance Summit is an annual conference of the Network forProgressive Governance. Membership is by invitation only, changing as governmentleadership changes. Current members of the Network include: Argentina, Brazil, andSouth Africa. The United Kingdom was a member under Labour leadership. Seehttp://www.pgs.gov.za/history.htm.396 Estelle Randall and John Battersby, “ANC gets tough with ZANU-PF”, The Mercury,10 March, 2001. Accessed online at:http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=285&fArticleId=ct20010310181005111N250501 on 9 November, 2010.168