Kgalema Motlanthe, President of the Republic of South Africa

[Moorbey]

ANC names Motlanthe as president
CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA Sep 22 2008 12:34

The African National Congress on Monday named its deputy president
Kgalema Motlanthe as head of state until elections are held in seven
months' time, a spokesperson said.

"Motlanthe will be the president, not interim, he will be the president
of the republic until the election," spokesperson for the ANC
parliamentary caucus KK Khumalo said after a meeting between the party
and lawmakers.

Motlanthe's nomination comes a day after President Thabo Mbeki announced
his resignation in a live broadcast, after calls by his party for him to
step down seven months before the end of his second term.

Motlanthe was elected party deputy president at a crunch ANC conference
in December last year, which was when Jacob Zuma toppled Mbeki from his
position as party chief.

According to the South African Constitution, Parliament elects the
president from among its members, dominated by the ANC since 1994.

Motlanthe was only recently appointed to Parliament as minister in the
presidency charged with smoothing the transition from one administration
to the next.

Mbeki was called to resign after suggestions by a judge that his
government had interfered in a corruption prosecution against his arch
rival Zuma, which was thrown out of court over a week ago.

Mbeki denied any such interference in a broadcast to the nation on Sunday.

Never sought limelight
Motlanthe is a left-leaning intellectual who has never sought the limelight.

Born in 1949, Motlanthe is the youngest of thirteen children, and he was
influenced by the revolutionary ideologies of the Black Consciousness
Movement of Steve Biko. He was detained by the apartheid government in
1977 at 28, the year after the 1976 Soweto uprising.

In 1967 he was detained for 11 months for pursuing the aims of the ANC.
He was later sentenced to 10 years imprisonment on Robben Island.
Shortly after his release he was elected secretary general of the
National Union of Mineworkers. In 1997 when politician-businessman Cyril
Ramaphosa retired from politics, Kgalema was elected secretary general
of the ANC.