Download - LSE Theses Online - London School of Economics and ...

initiated a proposal to make National Conferences five-yearly instead of three-yearlyoccasions. 433Meanwhile, the decade following the implementation of the government’scontroversial GEAR macroeconomic policy in 1996 proved to be one of the best interms of macroeconomic indicators in South Africa’s history since the 1960s. Thebudget deficit and inflation were brought to sustainable levels, along with the levelof public debt. 434However, these years were also marked by straitened times in the tripartite alliancebetween the ANC, COSATU, and the SACP. The clearest example of the limits onexpendable state power to effect a certain policy outcome is South Africa’s positionwith respect to the Zimbabwe question, a crisis that became increasingly heatedwith that country’s 2000 Parliamentary elections. While South Africa was widelydeemed to be the country most likely to be able to exert the leverage on Zimbabwerequired to bring about change in Mugabe’s actions and policies, it was hamstrungin its capacity to conduct active intervention in the travails of its neighbour to thenorth.According to a number of analysts, a major factor preventing Thabo Mbeki fromsupporting the position of the MDC, was his hesitance to be seen to be approvingthe rise of a union movement to political prominence, and potential leadership ofZimbabwe, during a time of heightened dissent within the tripartite alliance athome. 435 In 2000 Mbeki’s relationship with the union movement was dismal. They had beenon opposite sides of the macroeconomic debate for years; the unions were publicin their criticism of Mbeki’s stance on HIV and AIDS and were hardly thrilled by433 Gumede, “Modernising the ANC”, 38.434 Iraj Abedian, “Towards a post-GEAR macroeconomic policy for South Africa”, in“Trajectories for South Africa: Reflections on the ANC’s 2 nd National General Council’sdiscussion documents”, Policy: Issues and Actors (Special Edition), Vol. 18, No.2, ed.,Omano Edigheji (Johannesburg: Centre for Policy Studies, 2005): 6.435 See Andrew Feinstein, After the Party: Corruption, the ANC and South Africa’sUncertain Future (London and New York: Verso, 2009): 108. Also, Mbeki, Moeletsi.2007. “Interview with political analyst and brother of South African President, MoeletsiMbeki”. Transcript. Sunday 18 March, 2007. Accessed at:http://skynewstranscripts.co.uk/transcript.asp?id=335 on 9 May, 2011.181