Mbeki links SA’s post-2008 economic decline to leadership change

Former President Thabo Mbeki says South Africa’s economic decline stems from the change of leadership.
He used his keynote address at the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund’s 30th anniversary to echo his sentiments from 2008.
Mbeki has suggested that a change in leadership post-2008 undermined progress made in the country’s early years of democracy.
He says there are consequences from decline in economic growth on the well-being of South African children.
“The first place to look, in explaining this dramatic fall-off in productivity growth, might be to ask whether there was a reversal of the things that had supported the initial strong performance. Indeed, the most significant change was not the global financial crisis, which South Africa weathered remarkably well, but a change in the country’s president.”
 

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— Thabo Mbeki Foundation (@TMFoundation_) March 13, 2026

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