ANC's Motlanthe Takes the Helm In South Africa
African National Congress president Jacob Zuma at Parliament in Cape Town, South Africa, Thursday, Sept. 25, 2008, to attend a special sitting to elect a new president. The ANC nominee for president is former trade unionist and freedom fighter Kgalema Motlanthe.
(Nic Bothma - AP)
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Friday, September 26, 2008
JOHANNESBURG, Sept. 25 -- Kgalema Motlanthe, a former union leader and political prisoner, was sworn in as South Africa's caretaker president Thursday in a ceremony during which he pledged to keep the nation on course during its most turbulent political period since the end of apartheid.
Motlanthe succeeded Thabo Mbeki, whose ouster last weekend by the ruling African National Congress sparked fears of crisis in one of Africa's most stable democracies and healthiest economies. While Motlanthe's role is officially temporary, analysts said he will be expected to reassure a shaken public and jittery investors.
In a televised speech to Parliament, Motlanthe seemed to acknowledge that his job was also to mend rifts in the ANC, which has dominated South African politics since 1994. Those divides have deepened in the two weeks since a court dismissed a corruption case against Mbeki's rival, party leader Jacob Zuma, and suggested that Mbeki pressured prosecutors to file the charges.
"It is as important as ever that we stand united as a nation," said Motlanthe, 59. "It is as important as ever that we retain our faith in the resilience of our constitutional order and the vibrancy of our democracy. Though we may at times experience difficulty . . . we have both the will and the means to rise above the challenges of the present."
Motlanthe, the ANC's deputy president, is slated to hold office until national elections next spring, when Zuma is expected to win the presidency. But Motlanthe could continue in the job if renewed corruption charges or opposition within the party jettisoned Zuma's candidacy.
A former anti-apartheid activist who was jailed alongside Nelson Mandela on Robben Island, Motlanthe is regarded as levelheaded and unifying. Although he is a Zuma ally, he has been a cabinet member without a portfolio under Mbeki and has been touted as a possible compromise presidential candidate.
But Motlanthe is also intensely private and largely unknown to South Africans, unlike the populist Zuma. In a national poll conducted in May, about half of the respondents said they did not know enough about Motlanthe to express an opinion about him.
During his speech, Motlanthe reappointed most of the previous cabinet, a third of whose members announced their resignations Wednesday, jarring the markets and prompting the ANC to offer hasty reassurances that the transition to a new government would be smooth.
Among those reappointed was Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, who was among those who resigned but said he would stay on if asked. Manuel has held his post for 12 years and is viewed as key to investor confidence and economic stability.
In his speech, Motlanthe said policies would remain unchanged.
"These policies are the policies of a collective. They do not belong to any one individual. And it is not for any one individual to change them," he said. "Mine is not the desire to deviate from what is working."
