Former trade unionist and freedom fighter Kgalema Motlanthe became South Africa’s president yesterday in an atmosphere tense with fears of political and economic crisis precipitated by the rude ouster of his predecessor.
The divided African National Congress (ANC) forced former South African president Thabo Mbeki to resign last week after he lost a power struggle to the corruption-tainted leader Jacob Zuma.
The party says Motlanthe, 59, will be a caretaker until elections next year make Zuma president.
But if Zuma were convicted of corruption or becomes a victim of the party’s widening rift, Motlanthe — with his measured, almost ponderous style — could be the man who would rule South Africa beyond next year.
Long seen as a possible compromise presidential candidate, Motlanthe is praised as a unifier and conciliator, skills he will need as his party faces the worst crisis in its nearly century-old history. Supporters of Mbeki are threatening to split the ANC and form an opposition party, a move that could take votes away from the ANC and challenge the monolithic hold on power that the party has enjoyed since it brought down a racist white government and won democratic elections 14 years ago.
Motlanthe is one of the few figures in the ANC leadership to have weathered the past year’s vicious political battle. He has friends in the camps of both Zuma and Mbeki, though he has remained loyal to Zuma.
He was born in Johannesburg in 1949, the youngest of 13 children, and remains an intensely private figure about whom little personal is known. The bespectacled leader is unmarried and has three children. This year, he shaved away a signature white Lenin-style beard.
As a youth, Motlanthe was influenced by the Black Consciousness Movement of assassinated leader Steve Biko. He became involved in organizing the kind of student protests and school boycotts that led to the Soweto Uprising of 1976. For that, he was jailed for 11 months that year.
He came out of prison determined to fight even harder and joined the then-banned underground movement of the ANC. The following year he was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment, which he served on Robben Island at the same time as Nelson Mandela and Zuma.
On his release he joined the National Union of Mineworkers, still South Africa’s most powerful labor organization, and honed his political skills after becoming secretary-general in 1992.
“Under his leadership the union went from strength to strength,” union spokesman Lesiba Seshoka has said. “He demonstrated himself to be in touch with the people. We don’t have the slightest doubt about his leadership quality.”
In 1997, Motlanthe was elected secretary-general of the ANC.
At the ANC’s divisive congress in December — when Zuma ousted Mbeki as party president and his faction swept all top posts — Motlanthe was elected Zuma’s deputy and emerged as a unifying force.
Mbeki was accused of being autocratic and putting business ahead of the interests of the majority poor South Africans that are the bedrock of the party’s power.
When rowdy party members booed outgoing party chairman Mosiuoa Lekota — now the outgoing minister of defense — Motlanthe stepped up to the podium and the crowd immediately calmed down.
More recently, he was the only party leader with the confidence to chastise those who led the charge that brought Zuma’s ascent and Mbeki’s downfall.
“Unlike Zuma, he dared to stick his head above the parapet and rebuke the ANC Youth League for its menacing statements that it would ‘shoot to kill’ for the ANC president,” opposition leader Helen Zille said.
“Motlanthe is perhaps the most levelheaded and reasonable of all the politicians in the Zuma camp,” she said.
This year, when provincial premier Ebrahim Rasool was ousted, Motlanthe quickly made him one of his advisers, seen as a conciliatory gesture toward the mixed race electorate that dominates the southwest of the country. Rasool was an Mbeki supporter who fell foul of Zuma’s camp.
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