Mbeki resigns

However, he sounded a final warning to his eventual successor to honour his party's principles. He also claimed not to have interfered in rival Jacob Zuma's legal wranglings as inferred recently by Judge Nicholson.

In accordance with the instruction to do so from African National Congress (ANC), Mbeki has handed a letter of resignation to the speaker of parliament, Baleka Mbete. Parliament will now decide the date from which this is effective.

In a speech to South Africans after meeting with his cabinet, Mbeki appealed for unity.

For those who felt despondent about the ANC's divisions and its decisions to recall him, he said: "Never be despondent because the weather is bad. I would like to say that gloom and despondency never defeated adversity."

While he called for South Africans to do justice to the work that still needs to be done, to "work together" to achieve the national goals "we share", he took the opportunity to remind the incoming regime about the founding principles of the ANC, especially ubuntu and sacrifice and "actions that always reflect a just society".

While expressing confidence in the incoming administration, he reminded them of the challenges they faced in government.

'Strong views'

Mbeki categorically denied that he or any member of his cabinet had - as Judge Chris Nicholson's judgment last week had inferred - meddled with the justice system or organs of state like the National Prosecuting Authority to settle political scores.

"I would like to state categorically that we have never done this. This applies equally to the painful matter of the court proceedings of the ANC president, comrade Jacob Zuma," said Mbeki who qualified his dismissal of Nicholson's conclusions by saying that ANC governments since 1994 had always acted to respect the independence of the judiciary, even if rulings went against the executive.

This, however, did not mean that the executive did not have "strong views" on rulings like Nicholson's.

After touching on some of the achievements of his government, Mbeki conceded that much work needed to be done to reduce poverty and other challenges like the "twin challenges" of crime and corruption.

This brought him to the issue of moral regeneration as well as the founding principles of the ANC like ubuntu and sacrifice. He spoke around these issues in a manner that came across as a tacit warning to team Zuma.

Meanwhile, ANC Secretary General, Gwede Mantashe has stated that not one member of cabinet has yet tendered their resignation. They have all been asked to stay on by the ANC leadership.

- Fin24.com