Mbeki fired Zuma as his national deputy president in 2005, after Zuma's financial adviser was convicted of trying to elicit a bribe to deflect investigations into a multibillion-dollar international arms deal.

Former ANC president Thabo Mbeki (L) congratulates newly elected ANC president Jacob Zuma during a leadership conference in Polokwane in this December 18, 2007 file photo. Mbeki has agreed to resign after his ruling ANC announced that it would remove him from office before the end of his term. Agencies]

Initial charges were withdrawn against Zuma, but the chief prosecutor said last December that he had enough evidence to bring new ones. That comment came within days of Zuma defeating Mbeki in voting for ANC president.

In his ruling September 12, Judge Christopher Nicholson said it appeared Mbeki and his justice minister colluded with prosecutors against Zuma as part of the "titanic power struggle" within the ANC. Mbeki indignantly denied the accusation.

South Africa emerged from years of institutionalized racism in 1994 and entered an era of reconciliation embodied by anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela. Mbeki took over in 1999 and ushered in sustained economic growth averaging nearly 5 percent a year.

Many poor blacks disdained those achievements, complaining the benefits weren't reaching the masses. Others criticized Mbeki for failing to fight the country's crippling crime, and health activists were dismayed that he played down South Africa's devastating AIDS crisis.

Mbeki is regarded by many Africans as a statesmen for promoting what he calls Africa's renaissance and mediating conflicts ranging from Sudan to Ivory Coast to Congo.

For many years, his quiet diplomacy in troubled Zimbabwe was criticized as ineffective and biased toward Robert Mugabe, the autocratic president. But last week, he persuaded Mugabe to share power with the opposition. It was a retreat after nearly three decades of unchallenged power, although talks on the formation of a coalition Cabinet have since deadlocked.