South Africa’s President to Quit Under Pressure
JOHANNESBURG — President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, the loser in a prolonged power struggle with his rival, Jacob Zuma, agreed Saturday to resign after the top leaders of his party, the African National Congress, asked him to step down.
The party’s fateful decision is a harsh rebuke to Mr. Mbeki, the aloof and scholarly man who succeeded Nelson Mandela, leading the nation to an unprecedented run of economic growth and yet unable to restrain an ever-widening gap between the rich and poor.
Mr. Mbeki had first served the party as an acolyte in the nation’s freedom struggle and later for two decades as one of its guiding lights. The power — though not yet the presidency — now shifts to Mr. Zuma, an economic populist who has promised to loosen the manacles of poverty from the millions still living in shanties.
Gwede Mantashe, the party’s secretary general, announced the ouster at a news conference. Mr. Mbeki had been informed earlier. “He did not display any shock or any depression,” Mr. Mantashe said. “He welcomed the news and agreed that he is going to participate in the process and the formalities.”
Within hours, Mr. Mbeki’s office confirmed that he would leave the presidency “after all constitutional requirements are met.”
An acting president will be appointed from Parliament, probably within days, Mr. Mantashe said. Mr. Zuma is not eligible to be that replacement because he is not yet a member of that body, where the A.N.C. enjoys a huge majority. But he is expected to run in parliamentary elections next year and to take over as president after that. The elections are likely to occur some time between February and June.
Saturday’s events bring to a close a nine-year presidency during which Mr. Mbeki accrued both celebration and disrepute.
He became internationally notorious for his views about AIDS, joining maverick scientists in questioning whether a virus was the cause of the illness. He led the resistance to antiretroviral treatment, acting as if the AIDS epidemic were a defamatory plot against Africans and a con job by avaricious pharmaceutical companies. This intransigence, critics say, sent countless thousands to needless deaths.
While Saturday’s action by the African National Congress’s 86-member national executive committee required a day
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