This paper uses a four-dimensional analytical framework to scrutinise the practice of presidential leadership. Applied to Thabo Mbeki’s South African presidency (1999–2008), the framework examines how he navigated the core tensions between symbolic and executive roles, party and state, international and domestic pressures, and formal and informal power. Findings reveal Mbeki’s technocratic proficiency and centralising reforms alongside a failure to wield symbolic authority for national unity, particularly regarding HIV/AIDS. His systematic erosion of the party-state boundary through cadre deployment, while initially intended to empower the liberation movement, ultimately undermined state capacity. In foreign policy, Mbeki’s pragmatic Pan-Africanism aligned with domestic goals but his ‘quiet diplomacy’ in Zimbabwe led to negative domestic ramifications. Finally, while personally untainted, he institutionalised informal influence via expansive appointment powers and mechanisms like Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), inadvertently creating an architecture of dysfunction that facilitated later state capture. Mbeki’s tenure represents a paradoxical legacy, laying groundwork for both modern governance and institutional decay.
Anthony Michael Butler (Mon,) studied this question.