Kgalema Motlanthe - Presidency (2008-2009)

Presidency (2008-2009)

On 25 September 2008, Kgalema Motlanthe was elected by Parliament as the third post-apartheid President of South Africa. The Chief Justice, Pius Langa, announced Motlanthe's election after a secret parliamentary ballot contested between Motlanthe and Joe Seremane from the opposition Democratic Alliance. In the ballot, Motlanthe gained 269 votes from the 351 cast.

Over HIV/Aids, Motlanthe is accused of regurgitating Mbeki’s, now widely discredited, denialist’s position. However, he changed his stance on ARVs following the government’s decision of a mass rollout programme.

Although he has been criticised for standing by Mbeki’s “soft and non-confrontational” approach towards the Zimbabwean crisis, in truth he was quite critical of Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and Morgan Tsvingerai’s Movement for Democratic Change. Furthermore, his criticisms of emerging black capitalists and that Black Economic Empowerment was that it should be “restricted to one deal and that what was needed was genuine economic transformation that benefitted the Black masses rather than creating an elite club of Black millionaires” has earned him the “resentment of budding Black capitalists.”

Motlanthe has expressed his desire to address AIDS in South Africa using conventional scientific approaches. He appointed Barbara Hogan to replace Mbeki's health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who had denounced anti-retroviral drugs as poisons and advised the use of olive oil, garlic, and beetroot by HIV-positive persons. In early March 1998 he led the ANC's charge against the Medicines Control Council for refusing to allow the testing of Virodene on human subjects. He suggested that the MCC was acting under the sway of rival pharmaceutical manufacturers saying "I surmise that the council is driven by other interests than concern for proper control of medicines".

Motlanthe caused some controversy in South Africa when he did not reinstate the Head of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), Vusi Pikoli in December 2008. During his brief tenure, Motlanthe had to deal with the Vusi Pikoli matter. Vusi Pikoli, the head of the NPA, was suspended by Mbeki in 2007. Just prior to this Pikoli obtained an arrest warrant for the Commissioner of Police and head of Interpol, Jackie Selebi. The media speculated that Mbeki tried to shield Selebi. As President, Motlanthe recommended to Parliament that Pikoli be fired, even though the Ginwala Commission of Inquiry advised otherwise. Motlanthe was widely criticised for his action by the Parliamentary Opposition and the media. He strongly denied that he succumbed to political pressure from the ANC.

President Motlanthe gave his first and only State of the Nation Address on 6 February 2009.