Thabo Mbeki: From One Crumbling Government To Another

Poor Thabo Mbeki. The guy just can't catch a break. After being replaced as head of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) last December by his rival Jacob Zuma, Mbeki was forced to step down as President of South Africa last month - about six months before his term expired.

Still in demand as an influential statesman, however, Mbeki was asked to help negotiate the power-sharing arrangment in Zimbabwe between President Robert Mugabe and the head of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Morgan Tsvangirai. Now it appears that this deal is close to collapse - albeit through no fault of Mbeki's.

In an unfortunate twist, even as Mbeki is supervising the collapse of a neighbour's, er, "government," his home country is facing the very same prospect. South Africa's former defence minister has served the divorce papers to the ANC, likely instigating a split in the party and the creation of a breakaway rival party. As Rory explained earlier, this divorce has been a long time coming - nevertheless, with Presidential elections not scheduled until April, this leaves South Africa vulnerable in a period of political and economic uncertainty.

Meanwhile, the hapless Mbeki is now closely associated with the crumbling of two African governments in less than a month - I wonder if the leaders of the other AU countries are still returning his calls...