It may be too soon to write Thabo Mbeki's political obituary, but there are many signs of his authority rapidly, and perhaps irreversibly, draining away. Most significant in this regard are the number of people who once praised him, or sought his favour, but who have now turned against him. Indeed, it is such people who seem most eager to give him a good kicking, and thereby earn favour with his successor (whoever they think that might be).

While Mbeki was on the ascent he was often described as "Machiavellian". Now that he has stumbled, it is useful to revisit The Prince to gain some insight into the origins of his current predicament. Mbeki, arguably, departed from Niccolò Machiavelli's advice in three fatal respects.

The first admonition of The Prince which Mbeki disregarded was to shun flatterers. The only way to do this, Machiavelli advised, is "by letting people understand that you are not offended by the truth" but, he warned, "if everyone can speak the truth to you then you lose respect. So a shrewd prince should adopt a middle way, choosing wise men for his government and allowing only those the freedom to speak the truth to him, and then only concerning matters on which he asks their opinion, and nothing else." His attitude towards each one of his advisors, "should be such that they will recognize that the more freely they speak out the more acceptable they will be."

In his recent book Frederik Van Zyl Slabbert gives a revealing account of the breakdown of his friendship with Mbeki. Mbeki asked him, at around the time he was made deputy president, "What would you do if you were to become deputy president?" To which Slabbert replied, "I would appoint a number of committees of experts in key areas to constantly remind me of how much I have to learn and how ignorant I am". This must have offended Mbeki, Slabbert commented, for "it was the end of our comfortable friendship".

Mandela proffered similar advice to Mbeki. In a 1996 interview he stated that "the duty of a leader is to surround himself with very strong, independent and articulate people who can without fear, when the President steps out of line, say you are wrong." He also warned Mbeki against surrounding himself with yes-men and women. Yet, once again, this advice was ignored. As Robert Schrire noted in 1998 political loyalty was the key factor behind recruitment to the Mbeki-team, something which had resulted in the appointment of "personalities and intellects who constitute no threat to the leader personally."

It is an obvious point to make that if Mbeki had listened to Peter Folb, William Makgoba or Edwin Cameron - each of whom, at one stage or another, warned him (in private) against persisting with his misguided AIDS policies - his reputation would still be intact. Yet they were the ones shunned. Mbeki chose instead to surround himself with snake-oil peddlers and scientific charlatans who flattered him, applauded his views, and greased his intellectual vanity. From his advisors he demanded, not honest speaking, but subservience to his strange opinions - something that proved fatal to those deterred from taking life-saving medication as a result.

By making loyalty the key criteria in selection to his team, Mbeki disregarded a second aspect of Machiavelli's advice. This was that, "princes, especially new ones, have found men who were suspect at the start of their rule more loyal and useful than those who, at the start, were their trusted friends." A prince, Machiavelli noted, will not have any difficulty winning over those who were initially his enemies, "when they are such that they need someone to lean upon. And they are all the more forced to serve him loyally inasmuch as they realize that it is more necessary for them to wipe out with their actions the bad opinion he had formed of them; and so the prince finds them more useful than those who feel themselves so secure in his service that they neglect his interests."

Mbeki could quite easily have won over his former enemies once he had secured power. Instead, he chose to push out Afrikaners from state service, and then marginalise his internal party rivals and opponents. His decision to fill key positions in party and state with his trusted friends has now come back to bite him. It would be putting it mildly to say that once loyal Mbeki-ites like Jacob Zuma, Billy Masetlha, and Jackie Selebi, have ended up ‘neglecting' his interests.

Although Mbeki followed the maxim that it is better to be feared than loved, he disregarded Machiavelli's advice in a third respect, by ignoring the second (and less well known) part of the injunction. This was that "The prince must ... make himself feared in such a way that, if he is not loved, at least he escapes being hated." This is one of the most important safeguards for his rule, simply because a conspirator "always thinks that by killing the prince he will satisfy the people; but if he thinks that he will outrage the people, he will never have the courage to go ahead with his enterprise." Machiavelli warned that the prince "will be hated above all if...he is rapacious and aggressive with regard to the property and women of his subjects. He must refrain from these. As long as he does not rob the great majority of their property or their honour, they remain content."

It is not clear how Mbeki managed to make himself so unpopular inside the ANC. Although, his predisposition to humiliate both friends and rivals, and to unleash his creatures onto opponents and critics, could not but have provoked some enduring enmities. What is certain is that Jacob Zuma's rebellion against his rule, far from being met with outrage, has ignited widespread anti-Mbeki sentiment within the ANC and its allies.

This article was first published on http://www.ever-fasternews.com/ September 17 2006