JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Kgalema Motlanthe was sworn in Thursday as president of South Africa, with the former union official widely seen as a low-key figure who will keep the seat warm until the ruling party’s leader runs for the post after a new Parliament is elected in 2009.
Motlanthe’s election by secret parliamentary ballot earlier in the day was largely a formality, with the ruling African National Congress holding about 70 percent of the seats in Parliament.
He is viewed as a peacemaker able to straddle the two main camps in the bitterly divided ANC: supporters of party leader Jacob Zuma and loyalists to former President Thabo Mbeki, who was ousted last weekend.
Motlanthe pledged not to make any sharp changes in South Africa’s economic policies, after the shocks in the market two days earlier when Finance Minister Trevor Manuel resigned along with 10 other ministers.
Scrambling to neutralize the damage, the ANC announced that Manuel would stay on — a move Motlanthe confirmed Thursday. He also announced a Cabinet that included many of the members who served under Mbeki.
But he moved controversial Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang to a different Cabinet job: minister in the presidency. She had been criticized by the international AIDS community for her ardent promotion of beets, garlic and lemon to treat AIDS and her lukewarm approach to antiretroviral medication.
Motlanthe is an elder figure in the ANC who served 10 years in prison in the apartheid era alongside former President Nelson Mandela.
Motlanthe has won praise from opposition parties and was described by Patricia de Lille, leader of the small Independent Democrats party, as “one of the few voices of reason in the ANC.”
Helen Zille, leader of the main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, called on Motlanthe to set up a judicial inquiry into a corruption scandal over a multibillion-dollar arms deal in which Zuma has been accused.
