Let's just say that I find the governmental ANC track record bizarrely schizophrenic. They have done, and do, some things exceptionally well, and are sometimes unable to sell the message; on the other hand, some departments have been, to my impression, catastrophically inept and have still not been able to get their act together. Graft is always threatening. Yet, although it not being an excuse - what has been done with the bureaucratic and administrative re-alignment in the past 14 years is nothing short of miraculous. Going on a limb, I would say it's unparalleled in the world - to take the heritage from apartheid and create nine semi-autonomous provinces under one republic state structure.

Mbeki, however, has over the past year proven himself an increasing disappointment to me. He has done tremendous work for the country, but he's become an autocratic fossil, cramped by his own style and the mistakes he just cannot admit to have made and it's undoing his entire legacy. This is exactly the reason why Jacob Zuma is now leading the ANC and why there is an open revolt in the party. There is revolt in Mbeki's own government - with powerful ministers overruling some of Mbeki's more lax approaches. The Chinese ship with a cargo of weapons for Zim is case in point - Mbeki kept silent on it, and it would've allowed the unloading of those weapons on the shore - but ministers ordered the confiscation of the containers, in the spirit of the workers who refused to unload the ship.