Johannesburg - The SA government and the ANC made no secret of their delight at President Barack Obama’s re-election victory on Wednesday.
“I’m very happy he’s been given a second chance; he does deserve it “ ANC treasurer-general Matthews Phosa said at US ambassador Donald Gips’s residence on Wednesday as the champagne corks popped to celebrate Obama’s victory.
Phosa said he had met First Lady Michelle Obama at Gips’ residence when she visited SA last year. He had asked her if she was confident her husband would win again and she had been very confident he would.
Gips - a personal friend of Obama who appointed him to the key SA post - was also evidently delighted, even as he tried to maintain diplomatic impartiality.
President Jacob Zuma also congratulated Obama on his re-election on Wednesday, urging the US to continue playing a positive role in Africa.
“We value our relations with the United States and look forward to strengthening bilateral cooperation in the years to come,” Zuma said in a statement.
“South Africa is confident that the United States will continue to play a positive role in this regard”.
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, ex-wife of former president Nelson Mandela, enthusiastically welcomed Obama's victory.
"We all need an Obama presidency,"she said, adding that Obama's victory speech "brought tears to my eyes".
Lindiwe Zulu, Zuma’s foreign policy adviser, was also thrilled. “It’s very good. Four years was not enough for him to do all he had to do.”
Zulu said Obama had been widely criticised for not paying enough attention to Africa but she said she understood that he had been distracted by huge domestic challenges, including the economic recession he inherited.
“But now he has no excuse not to come to Africa and SA,” she said significantly. “I am sure he will come.”
Obama did in fact visit Africa in his first time, making a key Africa speech in Ghana but many Africans still felt he had neglected the continent.
US officials said it was possible that Obama would do an Africa visit early next year, taking in South Africa and Kenya - the birthplace of his father – among other countries. They thought he would time his visit to arrive in Kenya after its proposed March elections, if those went well.
Tom Amolo, Kenya’s High Commissioner to SA, also celebrated Obama’s victory at Gips’ residence. “it’s a great victory for the people of the US,” he said but added that the people of the world, including Africa and especially Kenya were also joining in the celebration.
But he also added a word of advice, saying that Africans now expected their issues to receive the required attention. However he was confident they would be.
“We hope this time he will pay us a visit,” he said, reflecting Kenya’s disappointment that Obama did not visit his father’s home country as president.
Amolo noted that his two sons, who were born and still live in Virginia, had voted for Obama – and had helped him carry the battleground state and the country.
Phosa noted that Obama had inherited a very difficult economy which even former President Bill Clinton had said he could not have managed.
“Now Obama has a duty to turn around the economy – not only for the US but the world.”
He added that he expected that Obama would also help Africa with peacekeeping support, to stabilise democracies and to boost African economies, including by encouraging much more US investment in the continent.
Phosa noted that SA and the US had disagreed over the military intervention in Libya which US had participated in.
“And we have been proven right; bombing has not solved the problem, the fighting still continues and the militias are still around.”
“But that is water under the bridge, let’s look ahead,” he said, saying he hoped that Obama would now support African efforts to resolve conflicts through political negotiations not military force.”
Gips disagreed that Obama had neglected Africa, noting that the US Pepfar programme of helping mostly African countries fight HIV/Aids had been been one of the greatest single programmes of foreign assistance in the world.
He also noted the African Growth and Opportunity Act which has allowed most African exports into the US duty free had been very good for Africa. It had helped to boost US-SA trade last year to a record US$21 billion.
He also added that Obama’s Food Security Programme would continue, saying the key to success in Africa was creating jobs and the programme was targeting the agriculture sector for this because it was the most important sector in African economies in general.
But he also noted that Obama still had huge domestic and international challenges to address including the ‘fiscal cliff”- the country’s perilous deficit and crises in countries like Syria and Iran.
A former senior US official specialising in Africa, also expressed the hope that Obama would inject more energy into his Africa policy in his second term. He said that the policy Obama had spelt out this year was good in broad terms but needed more energy and commitment to implement.
Speculation was rife at the US embassy about how would succeed Hillary Clinton as US Secretary of State as she has announced she will retire anyway. The frontrunners are US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice, a former assistant secretary of state for Africa, Obama’s national security adviser Tom Donnelly and Senator John Kerry, who lost his bid to unseat President George Bush in 2004.
A SA diplomat expressed some misgivings about the possibility of Rice getting the job, saying” she is one tough cookie”.
Nicole Jaff also celebrated Obama’s victory at Gips’ residence on Wednesday as did her daughter Elizabeth who campaigned for Obama in Ohio, the key battleground state which carried him past the victory margin of 270 votes in the electoral college today.
She said her daughter had gone to the US in 2007 to join Obama’s first election campaign as a volunteer and had stayed on to become a full-time campaign worker. “There she is as I speak, my South African child, “ she said ecstatically, as the Obama state victories mounted up and crossed the magical 270 vote margin.
Foreign Service
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