Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki

Former President Thabo Mbeki's intervention on the question of race will make their task even more difficult...

Presumably because of the government's planned offensive in Darfur the AU's special envoy Thabo Mbeki has delayed a trip to Khartoum meant to follow up on earlier talks between Darfur groups in April...

Some in the office of the President in Kinshasa also worry about the stronger SADC position against Kabila that the former South African President Thabo Mbeki has openly urged...

Yet there is no legal requirement for Zuma to heed the recall demand although President Thabo Mbeki did so in 2008 seven months before the end of his own term...

Otherwise he could face immediate 'recall by the party' (the fate of Thabo Mbeki in 2008) or the longer drawn-out vote of no confidence or impeachment by Parliament...

That's the same mechanism that ended Thabo Mbeki's tenure in the Union Buildings in September 2008 (AC Vol 49 No 20 A wounded presidency)...

Pravin Gordhan the former Finance Minister sacked by Zuma would become Minister of Public Enterprises; Joel Netshitenzhe former policy advisor to Nelson Mandela Thabo Mbeki and a Ramaphosa strategist would be Minister in the Presidency for monitoring and evaluation...

' In the past the ANC has studiously avoided damaging leadership contests and settled on a compromise candidate as it did in Durban in 1992 by bringing in veteran Walter Sisulu to avoid a divisive contest between Thabo Mbeki and the late Chris Hani for the post of ANC Deputy President (AC Vol 57 No 20 Zuma largesse under fire)...

HeavyweightsFuture South Africa has the backing of the foundations set up by the late President Nelson Mandela his confidant Ahmed Mohamed 'Kathy' Kathrada who died in March and former ANC leader Oliver Tambo; Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu; and three former state presidents FW de Klerk Thabo Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe...

Since the ANC's 2007 Polokwane conference which saw Zuma oust Thabo Mbeki as party President delegates increasingly vote as provincial blocs backing one presidential candidate who in turn has his or her own slate of candidates for the ANC National Executive Committee as well as candidates for the national and provincial parliaments and municipal mayors and councillors (AC Vol 48 No 25 'Unstoppable tsunami')...

As all factions cast around for solutions to the knotty problem of the succession some ANC leaders outside the Zuma-Ramaphosa battleground want former Deputy ANC President Kgalema Motlanthe to take the presidency on an interim basis just as he did when Zuma defeated Thabo Mbeki for the ANC presidency at the 2007 Polokwane Conference (AC Vol 48 No 25 'Unstoppable tsunami')...