Do we like them?

Do we like Thabo Mbeki?

Our score: 3 out of 10. His AIDS policy is a serious public-health harm he hasn't owned, but there's real good alongside it on LGBTQ+ people and migrants.

Mbeki is the ANC's old-school intellectual: decades of the struggle, Nelson Mandela's deputy, then South Africa's president from 1999 until he resigned in 2008. Daily Maverick said at his 70th birthday that his legacy was still mixed, and fourteen years later that's still the fair summary.

The big one is AIDS. His government dragged its feet on antiretroviral drugs while he entertained dissident scientists. A Harvard team estimated that cost about 330,000 lives and 35,000 infant infections, though that's a modelled estimate, not a headcount. In 2016 the Treatment Action Campaign said his letter on HIV repeated his old arguments and that he had not apologised or shown remorse.

Zimbabwe is the other stain. His 'quiet diplomacy' on Mugabe was challenged by Bush, Merkel and Harper at the 2008 G8, and the Mail & Guardian reported that even the ANC's own executive had concluded it was ineffective. His defenders said public pressure would only harden Mugabe, and the power-sharing deal later looked like a partial vindication. Where you land depends on which of those you buy.

In 2008 a judge suggested Mbeki had interfered in the corruption prosecution of Jacob Zuma. Mbeki denied it, and the Supreme Court of Appeal later found no evidence he had interfered in the decision to recharge Zuma. So that one's been tested in court and he came out clear, which is worth saying.

Now the better side of the ledger. In Uganda in 2012 he said anti-gay legislation made no sense and sexual preferences were not the state's business, according to PinkNews. In October 2025 he told a Thabo Mbeki Foundation event that South Africa's problems shouldn't be pinned on migrants, saying it hurt him to see groups like Operation Dudula do it. Operation Dudula hit back, telling him to fix his own mess on border control.

The recent stoush is about the past catching up. Mbeki was served a summons by the Khampepe inquiry in May and fought it in court, saying he was willing to testify but shouldn't be compelled while a bias ruling was pending. The Constitutional Court dismissed the bid to remove Justice Khampepe on 31 August, and he gave evidence in October. He had earlier called the allegations against him in the TRC litigation defamatory.