S. African president will not seek third term: official

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, February 05, 2004

S. African president will not seek third term: official

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A third term of office for South African President Thabo Mbeki has never been posed within the African National Congress (ANC), the ruling party's secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe asserted on Wednesday.

He was responding to a letter to Mbeki sent by the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Tony Leon, seeking clarity on the matter, the South African Press Association reported.

Last week, Leon said South African former president Nelson Mandela "has already seen fit to declare publicly that he is sure"that Mbeki would not change the Constitution to enable him to serve a third term as president, "but the president himself has refused to say."

The DA leader said he had written to Mbeki on Friday to ask about his stance on the issue.

In a letter to Leon on Wednesday, Motlanthe said "contrary to your assertion, the matter to which you refer was never mooted by (former) president Mandela. He was responding to a concern expressed to him that we might take a decision to extend the term of office of the president. He dismissed this concern unequivocally."

Any decision by the ANC to propose a change to any important provision in the Constitution would be taken by the senior organs of the ANC, and not by the president, said Motlanthe. "Such a decision would have to involve at least our National Executive Committee."

"The matter you raise, of the length of tenure of office of thepresident, has never arisen within our organization ever since theConstitution was adopted. We have received no indication that thisissue will be tabled at any time in the future."

Neither the ANC nor the president had raised the matter either publicly or privately, Motlanthe said.

Source: Xinhua

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