In the last 5 years Mbeki made a conscious and strenuous effort to put his own stamp on the presidency. He revelled in the now clichéd label of the man who was committed to delivery – the cold exponent of technical detail rather than the warm fuzziness of Nelson Mandela. But the state of the nation address didn’t reveal any new plans for ‘delivery’. In fact most of the speech drew on Mandela’s speech at the opening of the first democratic parliament. The looming election meant that he had to account for the failed promises on delivery epitomised in the targets set out in GEAR became a shooting gallery for critics. Mbeki’s solution was to try and disguise his failure by showing that he was ruling in the spirit of Mandela, that he had Mandela’s approval. It was a cheap trick and a clear sign of failure. It is common knowledge that the two biggest challenges facing South Africa are AIDS and unemployment. In now typical fashion both were only mentioned once. And the context was ominous: “Many of our people are unemployed…The burden of disease impacting on our people, including AIDS, continues to be a matter of serious concern, as do issues that relate to the fact that many of our people, including the youth, lack the education and skills that our country and society need.” Once again Mbeki was careful to place the AIDS pandemic on par with other issues. And of course he offered no analysis of the fact that, despite its projections, GEAR has failed to create jobs.