Manuel stays, but investors edgy

Because the Constitution is silent on what has to happen when the country's president resigns, it is still unclear - even to the ANC - what this actually means.

The ruling party's National Executive Committee announced its decision to recall Mbeki during its meeting at Esselen Park conference centre in Kempton Park on Saturday

ANC leader Jacob Zuma has spent a considerable amount of time assuring the business sector that policy will remain unchanged after Mbeki goes, but the reaction from investors is hinged on whether the replacement process is smooth.

Meanwhile, several ANC MPs are questioning whether the decision to recall Mbeki has been thought through properly, especially as the announcement had been taken without any answers about how Cabinet, state services and civil servants (especially directors general who are closely aligned to their ministers) were going to be managed.

When asked about this, ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe said that Mbeki would, in the coming days, meet with ANC "deployees" in government to assure them that the ANC would wish for them to remain in government.

But, Mantashe added: "If that individual opts out of the movement, we cannot chain them to the process. We will respect their decisions."

While all indications from NEC members are that Finance Minister Trevor Manuel will stay on until the election and beyond it in Zuma's cabinet, Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka has indicated that she intends resigning in solidarity with Mbeki. All eyes are on a special Cabinet meeting Mbeki has called to discuss the issue with his ministers.

He's expected to address South Africa after this meeting to explain what his next move will be.

Meanwhile, leader of the United Democratic Movement Bantu Holomisa called the decision "barbaric" and a transparent move by a "lynch mob" to make sure that the corruption case against Zuma was squashed once and for all.

Revenge

He warned that this would not bode well for the ANC when it tested its support at the polls in next year's election.

Holomisa said that this move re-inforced how South Africa's electoral system needed to be changed so that the people elected the first citizen of the country and not the ruling party.

Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille says the ANC's move was motivated by "revenge".

"The ANC has turned its internal battles into a crisis for South Africa. ANC factionalism has long undermined government's ability to deliver, and it now threatens to destabilise the entire country. The move is clearly an attempt to find the 'political solution' to Jacob Zuma's legal problems that his supporters have been calling for," said Zille.

She said it is untenable for Zuma to assume the Presidency without being acquitted of the corruption charges. A ruling in the Pietermaritzburg High Court last week, which linked Mbeki to a political conspiracy against Zuma, was not an acquittal of Zuma's corruption charges, Zille stressed.

President of the IFP, Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, described the recall as the "biggest challenge to South Africa since apartheid".

"Whilst we must respect that the leadership of the ANC is a private matter for the ruling party and that the change has taken place within the ambit of the Constitution, the decision of the ANC obviously has serious ramifications for the country's political, economic stability and statecraft," he said.

- Fin24.com