Lamola is no Pandor in steering foreign policy

It’s always a hard act to follow in the footsteps of a respected foreign policy icon whose stance in bringing balance, equity and a sense of moral relevance to a range of issues endeared her to millions at home and abroad.

When President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed Ronald Lamola as the new minister of international relations and co-operation of the Government of National Unity (GNU) in July to replace the enigmatic Dr Naledi Pandor, did he envisage policy continuity to stem an inevitable cajoling from his main GNU partner, the DA, rightly or wrongly perceived as pushing the foreign policy interests of the West, judging by its stance on the vexed issues of Ukraine, the conflict in Gaza and the situation in Palestine/Israel?

Given the vitriol against the ANC’s foreign policy in three decades of democracy in some sections of the radical white cohorts and their motley of media supporters, infused with a potpourri of near neo-colonial chauvinism, condescension and revisionism tempered with historical amnesia and denial and downright bigotry, which persists even under the GNU coalition, albeit to a lesser extent, the goal remains that Pretoria should chart a different course. This one by resetting GNU foreign policy in line with the perceived “benefits” from South Africa’s continued membership of the US preferential trade dispensation, African Growth and Opportunity Act and the US/UK/EU investment in the Just Energy Transition Partnerships in the country’s clean energy transition.

The concern is more to do with the financial, investment and economic returns that can be extracted in pursuit of a neo-liberal economic agenda of minimalist state intervention at the expense of a much greater private sector involvement, as opposed to any semblance of a recourse to an ethical foreign policy, based in the case of South Africa on centuries of brutal imperialist-cum-colonial-cum apartheid rule.

True, ethical foreign policy is as passe as history itself. Today, foreign policy is dictated by realpolitik and national interests. Any attachments to concepts such as “a Just War” or “for the greater good” have long been jettisoned across the ideological spectrum, thanks largely to the moral ambivalence suggested by constructs such as “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”, which is embedded in the psyche of any self-respecting South African and freedom activist anywhere.

Wasn’t it the two so-called self-styled global gatekeepers of democracy – the US under president Roland Reagan and the UK under prime minister Margaret Thatcher – who defied a global consensus by insisting on branding Madiba and his cadres as “terrorists and sanctioned the ANC as a Marxist outfit”?

Secretary of state James Baker, a few years after the 1991 Middle East Peace Conference in Madrid, refused to be drawn into whether he supported the concept of an ethical foreign policy in response to a question from me at a corporate luncheon in New York. But he had the moral courage to admit that applying ethics in foreign policy was complex and ridden with potential contradictions and conflicts of interest.

Is Lamola an inspired choice and is he well equipped to steer South African foreign policy at a time when the country is facing dire domestic challenges and global dilemmas, leading up to Pretoria’s Presidency of the G20 in 2025 culminating as Summit host?

Lamola is no Pandor. He cuts a dapper persona, but he is a “young Turk” of South African politics. He was thrown into the deep end in running the Justice Department in Ramaphosa’s erstwhile Cabinet, playing second fiddle to Mama Africa’s calling out at the International Court of Justice Israel’s brutal excesses against civilians in Gaza in tandem with condemning the loss of life in the October 7 attack and calling for the release of all hostages and an immediate ceasefire.

In contrast, Pandor became a darling of the man and woman in the global street, especially in the developing countries, for her resolute stance on a range of other metrics too – the extortionate levels of inequality and debt in the global economy, lack of access to affordable financing, the ability to make sovereign decisions in foreign policy, choice of memberships of trading and power blocs, deciding who your friends are – with or without benefits, all of which disproportionately affect developing states, to the chagrin of the Western neo-liberal consensus.

Lamola exudes a freshness but also a naivety, probably due to his relative inexperience and lack of gravitas and of Pandor’s gift of the gab. Let’s hope his frustration with the United Arab Emirates authorities and “failure” to get the Guptas extradited from the Emirates and India to face fraud and state capture charges in South Africa, will be positively channelled into foreign policy gains.

When he was in London last week to meet his British counterpart David Lammy, the fault lines of divergence could not have been starker – consensus on improving bilateral relations and on a ceasefire in Gaza, but an “agree to disagree” on Ukraine and relations with Russian strongman President Vladimir Putin – on the basis that nations must decide their own foreign policy.

What was surprising, though, that instead of delivering his designated speech on “The Future Of South Africa’s Policy” at the prestigious think tank, Chatham House, he opted to give a 20-minute briefing of his foreign policy playbook, followed by a Town Hall-type meeting-cum-press conference which was inevitably also consumed by domestic issues.

There was hardly a coherent vision for South African foreign policy, but more of a mishmash of aspirations and problem-solving through negotiations, consensus and confidence-building.

South Africa’s foreign policy, he stressed, was firmly rooted in multilateralism and South-South co-operation and embedded in pursuit of an unashamedly “human rights agenda” towards a just and equitable world.

The priority for continental Africa is peace and stability through economic integration and development and the implementation of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area.

His most pointed views, however, were on the urgent reform of the UN Security Council and other international bodies, such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, to be more representative in terms of permanent seats and access to just and equitable finance – a UN based on international law and non-exceptionalism bereft of any who think they are above impunity.”

His message to AU countries is clear: “We condemn coups anywhere in the world.” The ANC’s “gracious acceptance” of the 2024 election result despite losing its absolute majority, is a good example of governance integrity in continental Africa. The icing on the cake: How does Africa leverage its pole position in strategic minerals to benefit the rising continent?

Parker is an economist and writer in London.

Cape Times