CAPE TOWN, Sept 22: South Africa’s ruling ANC on Monday named its deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe to take over as head of state after Thabo Mbeki bowed to pressure and announced his resignation, a spokesman said.

Motlanthe, who like many of South Africa’s current leaders was involved in the struggle to end white minority rule, was to serve as head of state until elections were held in seven months’ time, the spokesman said.

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

He has been considered a key ANC strategist who has appealed to supporters of both Mbeki and the outgoing president’s rival Jacob Zuma.

ANC president Zuma is widely seen as the favourite to become head of state after elections next year.

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

According to the South African constitution it is parliament, which has been dominated by the ANC since apartheid ended in 1994, that elects the president from among its members.

Zuma declined later to say who would be the party’s candidate to replace Mbeki, saying it would be parliament’s role to do so.

“We have in cabinet many experienced ministers, including the deputy president of the ANC, Comrade Kgalema Motlanthe. I am convinced that if given that responsibility he would be equal to the task,” he said.

Zuma, a charismatic leader seen as a champion of the poor, said there would be a “smooth transition” in the presidency, adding that economic policy would remain unchanged.

“Comrade Mbeki led an ANC government. We therefore expect a smooth transition as this is not a change of party but only leadership in government,” Zuma told reporters.

“Our economic policies will remain stable, progressive and unchanged.” Mbeki announced in a television address on Sunday that he had submitted his resignation to speaker of parliament Baleka Mbete after his party called for him to step down in the interests of African National Congress unity.

He said he had tendered his resignation “effective from a day that will be determined by the national assembly.” Mbeki, 66, who succeeded Nelson Mandela as president in June 1999, has thus become the country’s first democratically-elected president to be forced out of office before the end of his term.

South African newspapers saluted the outgoing president’s dignified exit but had harsher words for the party that had sacrificed him.

“A defiant President Mbeki has bowed down from office, proclaiming his innocence while pledging loyalty to the organisation that unceremoniously ousted him as head of state,” the Star newspaper reported.—AFP