Former president Thabo Mbeki will not attend the opening of Parliament on Friday, his spokesperson said.
Mukoni Ratshitanga said Mbeki — who was recalled from office in September — had already made other plans by the time the invitation had arrived.
“Regrettably, the former president will not be attending the opening of Parliament because by the time the invitation came he had already committed himself to another engagement of which he could not pull out,” Ratshitanga was quoted as saying by the South African Press Association.
The national executive committee of the African National Congress (ANC) recalled Mbeki from office last year after a Pietermaritzburg High Court ruling hinted at political interference in the decision to prosecute ANC leader Jacob Zuma on graft charges.
President Kgalema Motlanthe was appointed as caretaker president.
Zuma on Thursday evening paid tribute to Motlanthe, saying he had unified the country.
“He [Motlanthe] had led the country well … he held the nation together during a difficult time after the recall of the then president of the republic,” said Zuma.
Recent reports of party in-fighting have suggested that some ANC members were not happy with the way in which Motlanthe ran the country.
New brooms
Workers armed with brooms were on Friday morning giving a final sweep to the red carpet that Motlanthe will walk down at the opening of Parliament.
The president is due to start delivering his State of the Nation Address just after 11am.
But by 8am the first MPs, many of them in colourful Afro-chic outfits, were already arriving.
Also among the 8am arrivals were snipers, carrying rifles and scopes, who will take up positions on rooftops overlooking the parliamentary complex.
Staff of a horticultural company were pushing fresh plectranthus cuttings into the soil of a flower bed next to the National Assembly entrance.
One explained that the pink petunias which had been planted there were wilted, and did not look very good.
“You fake it or you make it,” he said with a grin.
When Mbeki opened Parliament, he was accompanied by his wife Zanele.
A senior parliamentary official on Friday declined to comment on whether Motlanthe would have a female companion at the ceremony.
The president’s love life — he is estranged from his wife and is reportedly involved with at least one other woman — has been in the news recently. — Sapa