South African President Thabo Mbeki said he has no plans to appoint the deputy president of the ruling African National Congress to cabinet or make other changes to accomodate allies of ANC leader Jacob Zuma, Reuters reported. Mbeki, who lost the leadership of the ANC to Zuma in a bitterly contested election in December, told South Africa's Star newspaper there was no truth to reports that he would appoint ANC Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe to his cabinet. Media have speculated that Motlanthe, a left-leaning intellectual popular among Zuma supporters, could replace Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, an Mbeki ally who took over from Zuma when he was fired in 2005 in an arms deal scandal. "Kgalema has not raised that. I speak to Kgalema quite often ... nobody in the ANC has ever suggested such a thing to me. Nobody," the newspaper quoted Mbeki as saying in a report on Monday. He added it was not necessary to fire any of his current ministers.
