South Africa’s ruling African National Congress has asked President Thabo Mbeki to appoint its deputy president to Parliament as a first step to getting him into the cabinet, an ANC official said on Tuesday.
ANC deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe, a left-leaning intellectual and ally of ANC leader Jacob Zuma, has been touted as a compromise presidential candidate if Zuma’s legal problems force him to stand down before the 2009 election.
Zuma, who has aroused investors’ fears with his ties to trade unions and communists, goes on trial for money-laundering, racketeering, fraud and corruption in August. He has said he will stand down as ANC leader and hence not run for president of South Africa if convicted.
”We have had discussions with Mbeki on a confidential basis to appoint Motlanthe as a member of Parliament,” ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe said at a news conference in Johannesburg.
”We want him in Cabinet,” said Mantashe, who added that the party would like Motlanthe to be part of a team that manages the transition between Mbeki and his successor. South Africa’s Constitution requires that Mbeki stand down in 2009.
It was unclear whether the South African leader, who has struggled to hold the reins of government since losing the ANC leadership to Zuma late last year, would consent to the proposal. Mantashe said the party did not want to be seen as giving orders to Mbeki.
Many pro-Mbeki officials, however, have been purged from party and parliamentary positions in the past four months, and Mbeki is increasingly seen as a lame duck with less than a year to serve in his final term.
Motlanthe’s stock within the ANC rose in December when he calmed tempers between supporters of Mbeki and Zuma at a party congress where delegates overwhelmingly elected Zuma to succeed Mbeki as party leader.
The ANC’s electoral dominance in the country virtually assures that its leader will become South Africa’s president in 2009.
Putting Motlanthe into the Cabinet could ease concerns that two centres of power had developed in the country since Zuma’s election, with one based in the Mbeki-controlled government and the other in the Zuma-led ANC.
There was speculation that Motlanthe could replace Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, an Mbeki ally who took over from Zuma when he was fired in 2005 after being accused of corruption in an arms deal.
Motlanthe could also assume the defence portfolio. There have been calls for Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota, another Mbeki ally who raised the hackles of the Zuma camp with repeated attacks on the Zulu politician, to step down from the cabinet. – Reuters