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South African President resigns |
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Sunday, 28 September 2008 |
Thabo Mbeki has formally resigned as the president of South Africa a day after accepting a call from his governing party, the African National Congress to quit.
He announced his resignation last weekend in a televised address, saying that he had handed a resignation letter to the speaker of the National Assembly.
He said he would leave his post as soon as a new president was chosen. Up to press time it was unclear who will succeed Mbeki, but the ANC appears to favor the parliamentary speaker, Baleka Mbete, as acting president. Mbeki’s term as president was scheduled to expire next year April. It is widely believed that the popular current ANC leader, Jacob Zuma, who was once Mbehi’s protégé, will replace him.
Mbeki's resignation followed an emergency cabinet meeting that followed the ruling of a high court judge who suggested that Mbeki may have interfered in a corruption case against Zuma. The corruption charge was dismissed. During his resignation address Mbeki made an impassioned defense of his position. He said there had been no effort at all to meddle with the judicial process, and he also dismissed any suggestion he had been trying to shape the judgment for his own political ends.
Following the announcement of Mbeki’s resignation, 14 members of the 28-minister South African Cabinet resigned. This included Finance Minister, Trevor Manuel, who along with Mbeki was credited with steering the country to economic stability, with economic growth rates topping 5 percent annually. The announcement of Mbeki’s and Manuel resignation sent the stock market reeling. However, after the leadership of the ANC succeeded in getting Manuel and six of the other ministers who resigned to rescind their decision the stock market rebounded.
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