Credit Where Its Due

I have been doubtful about the Iraq project that the US (with its sidekick ally the UK), have been attempting, and indeed I thought the whole debacle would end in a civil war, but recently there have been signs that despite everything, a semblance of a democratic state in a Muslim world appears to be emerging from the rubble.

Firstly, elections in Iraq have been held not once but twice, and generally accepted as being 'clean & fair', with the next national elections being set for January 2010, and for that I have to credit where its due.

And now, the Iraqi Minister of Trade, Abdul Falah Sudani (along with his brother Sabah Mohammed Sudani), and 1,000 allegedly corrupt officials, have been arrested for corruption by the anti-corruption watchdog, the Commission on Public Integrity. Few details have been disclosed, but the public watchdog said at least 50 were senior figures were included in those arrested.

Now, you can prove me wrong, but how many middle eastern states have a Commission on Public Integrity? And how many would arrest a minister and his officials, after 'serious complaints about the trade ministry, where officials allegedly took bribes for contracts'?

If this is proved to be a genuine investigation, and not some power struggle between factions in the Iraqi, then maybe this is a sign of a genuine democratic government developing in soil that is not very promising.

However, the sheer scale of the alleged corruption could mean that in fact the government is riddled with thieves and is therefore already failed .... figures suggest as much as a billion dollars a year is stolen by government officials.

Who knows, maybe George W Bush (and little Tony Blair), may be proved to be right in their assertion that history would eventually prove them correct ..... but my money is on the fact that Transparency International, say that Iraq is one of the most corrupt places in the world, third only to Burma and Somalia (which are both considered 'failed states').

Democracy or Conspiracy at work in South Africa?

In a strange turn of events in South Africa, the President Thabo Mbeki who has outwardly been a model of propriety and democratic (ish ... this is Africa!) behaviour, has been ousted in a bloodless coup by his greatest rival Jacob Zuma. 

I touched on the background to this event a few weeks ago, but with reference to the threats by his supporters, to use unconstitutional means to overturn any court decision that they didn't support, I little suspected that this was the beginning of the end for Mbeki, who only a few days ago was negotiating the "Zimbabwe settlement". 

Zuma, who has been bedevilled by allegations of corruption, sexual misbehaviour, and other undemocratic behaviour, has somehow survived all of this, with most legal cases being tied down from ever getting to court by his lawyer, whilst he publicly asks for 'his day in court'. A tactic that works with his constituency of barely literate, poor blacks who are politically naive at best, and often followers of the 'land grab politics' of Mugabe at their worst. 

These supporters are the same people who recently took to ethnic cleansing to remove foreigners from many areas. Thabo Mbeki on the other hand only recently got linked to a corrupt arms deal (not terribly convincingly), and then suddenly a judge suggests that he had 'interfered with a case against Zuma' (although not all agreed with the judge), and he is forced to resign by his own (Zuma controlled) ANC party. 

It is a forgone conclusion that Zuma will win the party elections as he already is party president (which is effectively the same thing), and thus when he takes over as President Zuma of South Africa, he will have completed one of the strangest power transfers in African history. 

What this all means for South Africa is hard to judge, on the one hand Thabo Mbeki has accepted his demotion without apparent rancour and peacefully, whilst on the other, this does appear to be a coup (although not with the guns that usually accompany an African coup). Mr Zuma is a strange mixture of deviousness and populism, and its this mixture that makes it hard to predict how this will play out ... but perhaps poorly. 

He recently apparently pledged to help white Boers who were now living in poverty in their own White Townships (the ANC has always accepted Boers as "Afrikaner Africans" but considered the English speakers as "Colonials"). However his anthem "Umshini wami" (Bring Me My Machine-Gun)" tends to suggest that his power base is similar in nature to that of Robert Mugabe's "War Veterans" i.e. young, unemployed males prone to violent behaviour....... and they recently threatened violence if court decisions went against them, which is not a good sign. 

I expect there to be a honey moon period, but should he be baulked in anyway by the courts or constitution, then there may a temptation for him to just override them .... I may be wrong, but there are hints that he has that kind of 'Big Man African politician' personality. 

"Debate is almost non-existent and no one is apparently accountable to anybody apart from their political party bosses. It is bad news for democracy in this country". Helen Suzman