Sudden departure SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki, 66, told the nation Sunday that he had resigned, having lost a power struggle to rival Jacob Zuma, tainted by allegations of corruption but poised now to lead the country. African National Congress (ANC) deputy leader Kgalema Motlanthe will become the interim head of state, paving the way for Zuma to take over after upcoming elections. The ANC is expected to win at the polls despite its upheavals and disillusionment over its drift to the right. Following Mbeki's resignation, finance minister Trevor Manuel and most leading cabinet ministers and deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka resigned. Key mediator in the Zimbabwe crisis, local government and housing minister Sydney Mufamadi, also resigned. Manuel has since insisted he is ready to serve in a new government. Though a former member of the South African Communist Party, Mbeki was a willing convert to pro-market policies over the past 15 years in power as vice president and president. In 1996 finance minister Manuel introduced a neo-liberal economic strategy known as Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR). The ANC is in a formal alliance with the Communists and the Trade Union Movement, Cosatu. Both were fiercely critical of the strategy and argued that they had been excluded from its development and implementation. Mbeki traced the achievements of his office, including transforming the economy, "resulting in the longest period of sustained economic growth in the history of our country," spurring social progress and winning the right to host the 2010 World Cup. "Despite the economic advances we have made, I would be first to say that the fruits of these positive results are still not fully and equally shared among our people, hence abject poverty coexisting side by side with extraordinary opulence," he said on resigning. Mbeki was pressured to quit after a judge threw out a corruption case against Zuma who has been under a cloud for the past eight years from allegations relating to a big arms deal. Mbeki fired Zuma as national deputy president in 2005, after Zuma's financial adviser was convicted of trying to solicit a bribe to deflect investigations into the arms deal. Initial charges against Zuma were withdrawn, but the chief prosecutor said last December that he had enough evidence to bring new ones. That was within days of Zuma being elected ANC chief. Judge Chris Nicholson threw out the new charges last week on a technicality and implied they were the result of political interference. Although increasingly isolated at home in recent months, Mbeki persisted in his statesmanship abroad. In his speech he listed countries that have benefited from South African mediation and quiet diplomacy, including Congo, Burundi, Ivory Coast, Sudan and Zimbabwe. Sudden non-departure IN YET another historical development for troubled African politics, Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has formally agreed to a power sharing agreement with the opposition. Mugabe has served as head of government since 1980, as prime minister from 1980 to 1987 and as the first executive president since 1987. After this year's close presidential race, which the main opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai claimed he won, and the subsequent run-off, which Tsvangirai boycotted, Mugabe's legitimacy as president was called into question, with the G8 nations releasing a statement in July saying they "do not accept the legitimacy of a government that does not reflect the will of the Zimbabwean people". On 15 September a power-sharing agreement, brokered by South African leader Thabo Mbeki, was signed. Under the terms of this agreement, Mugabe will be recognised by the opposition MDC as president, Morgan Tsvangirai will become prime minister, the MDC will control the police, Mugabe's ZANU-PF will command the army, and MDC member Arthur Mutambara will become deputy prime minister. According to the agreement, the ruling ZANU- PF party will control 15 ministries to the opposition's 16. Mugabe has since called the agreement a "humiliation" and it is far from clear that this brokered agreement will result in a stable government. Andrew Chadwick, who has worked as a political consultant to the opposition, said civil servants would be able to act independently if the police were no longer Mugabe's enforcers. "If people get the courage to speak out, knowing that if they get beaten they can go to the police, I can see them really beginning to turn their backs on ZANU-PF," he said. The deal and dividing control of the major ministries is part of what he called "a process to change the whole power structure of the country and the way it's governed."
