Mbeki Appoints Woman As Deputy

A former schoolteacher who was elected to parliament in South Africa's first free elections is to be sworn in today as the country's first female deputy president.

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, 49, the mineral and energy affairs minister, replaces Jacob Zuma, who was dismissed last week after being implicated in a corruption scandal.

As a minister, Mrs Mlambo-Ngcuka won praise for transforming South Africa's mining industry, giving black businessmen a greater share of an industry that had traditionally exploited cheap African labour.

Mrs Mlambo-Ngcuka's appointment gives her a head start in the race to succeed President Thabo Mbeki when he steps down.

"She's known to be very effective," Susan Booysen, a professor of politics at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth, told Reuters. "But the pressures are going to be very significant. There is no mercy in that job."

Her appointment may fuel claims by supporters of Mr Zuma that he was the victim of a conspiracy.

Mrs Mlambo-Ngcuka is married to Bulelani Ngcuka, a former national public prosecutor, who provoked controversy when he told journalists in 2003 that although there was prima facie evidence of corruption against Mr Zuma, the case was not strong enough to go to court.

Mr Zuma's supporters claimed the comment was evidence of an attempt to tarnish his reputation to prevent him from becoming president.

South Africa's national prosecuting authority reviewed the case against Mr Zuma after his former financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, was convicted and jailed on sleaze charges this month. The former deputy president was charged with corruption on Monday, less than a week after President Mbeki dismissed him from office.

Mrs Mlambo-Ngcuka began her career as a teacher, before working at the world office of the Young Women's Christian Association in Geneva, where she promoted education and job creation programmes.

She later returned to South Africa under apartheid, where she worked with a group encouraging economic self-reliance among squatter women in Cape Town.

She was elected to parliament in 1994 and became deputy trade and industry minister two years later. She took over at minerals and energy in 1999.

There, she reformed the industry that laid the foundations of Africa's biggest economy. As a part of the ANC's attempt to redress the economic wrongs of apartheid, she helped introduce a black empowerment charter which aims to put a quarter of the mining industry in black hands by 2014.

Companies will receive mining licences in South Africa, the world's biggest producer of gold and platinum, only if they meet targets that include having more black managers and improving conditions for communities near their mines.

"Within government circles, trade unions and large sections of business, she is regarded as the most productive minister, with a record on delivery," the Financial Mail magazine wrote last year.

One recent incident has proved damaging to her reputation. When activists called for an investigation into illnesses among workers at a nuclear plant, she said South Africa needed laws to prevent organisations "spreading panic". The remark was seen as an attack on free speech.

The deputy trade and industry minister, Lindiwe Hendricks, succeeds Mrs Mlambo-Ngcuka as mineral and energy affairs minister.

Mr Mbeki said the cabinet changes were an opportunity to strengthen the role of women in the executive.