Meet South Africa's President
Thabo Mbeki, the son of veteran African National Congress (ANC) leader Govan Mbeki, was inaugurated as President of South Africa on 14 June 1999, and quickly made his mark.On the domestic front, Mbeki eased public fear by promising an iron fist in clamping down on crime. On the international stage, he gained immediate acceptance as a credible successor to Nelson Mandela.
Regarded as one of the ANC's leading intellectuals, Mbeki commands respect as a hard worker and a task master who gets things get done.
And while he has travelled through a string of controversies as President - notably around HIV/Aids - his achievements are impressive.
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"Forex rules are being eased and policy is to abolish them altogether. SA firms are making big investments abroad and liberalisation of trade has seen import tariffs fall.
"This is Mbeki's work", Bruce wrote. "He made the policies and he found the people to implement them … he genuinely believes good governance and fiscal propriety are essential conditions for development."
Mbeki's stature has also grown on the continent through active leadership in problems ranging from the Zimbabwean situation to the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He has also become an important international player as leaders of the developed world have sought his views on how best to interact with the continent.
Mbeki attends the 2001 World Economic Forum conference in Davos, Switzerland. Mbeki addressed the conference on globalisation and the forerunner to the New Partnership for Africa's Development.
Mbeki served under Mandela as one of two deputy presidents after the 1994 elections, becoming the only deputy president when FW de Klerk's Nationalist Party quit the Government of National Unity in 1996.
As deputy president, Mbeki was increasingly given more of a say in the day-to-day running of the country. When Mandela handed over the reigns in 1999, he was de facto President already.
Bruce, in the Business Day article quoted above, argued that South Africa's past "made an Mbeki inevitable", advising people who wanted to understand Mbeki better to "read his favourite book, 'Frontiers', by Noel Mostert.
"… It charts, meticulously, the rape of South Africa by a succession of murderous colonisers after whom half our towns, rivers and mountains are now named. It is quite an education."
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