Keep the US out of SA's business

THABO Mbeki stepped into Nelson Mandela's colossal shadow, celebrated as an intellectual heavyweight and global statesman.

- YASEEN BURT

Yet, his presidency was marked by a distance from the daily, pressing realities faced by ordinary South Africans.

Immersed in academic abstractions and removed worldviews, Mbeki inadvertently created the conditions for Jacob Zuma's rise, whose tenure was less a testament to leadership than an exploitation of widespread frustration within the black majority.

What ensued was a disheartening chapter marked by state capture, scandals, and a systematic erosion of accountability. Yet, railing against the ANC's decay will not change the record; this much is widely agreed. The more urgent question concerns the vacuum left by a liberation movement hollowed by corruption and mismanagement, one that certain figures have eagerly moved to fill.

Rob Hersov is one such voice, speaking candidly about entrenched corruption, mismanagement and a leadership he has not shied away from describing as lacking in vision.

On these points, there is little disagreement between his views and those shared by many South Africans, myself included. But where Hersov and others like Ernst Roets of Afri-Forum part ways with those seeking internal reform is in their decision to involve external powers. Their appeals to the White House, specifically during Donald Trump's tenure, cross a line into troubling disrespect for national sovereignty.