PRETORIA, April 28 (AFP) - South African President Thabo Mbeki unveiled a new cabinet for his second and final term on Wednesday, including more women and members of other parties, saying their focus would be on service delivery.
"This is a very strong team. I'm glad that when I spoke to them all last night and early this morning they responded well ... to the critical challenge which is the implementation of policy," said Mbeki as he announced the 50-member team.
Twenty-two of the team are women in key portfolios such as foreign affairs, justice, mining and education.
"We've ... sought to address the matter of the gender issue to further increase the number of women ministers and the number of women deputy ministers compared to the 1999 cabinet," Mbeki said, adding that there were five more women ministers.
"We haven't quite reached 50 percent yet but we're getting there," he said.
Mbeki retained Mosiuoa Lekota in the defence portfolio, Trevor Manuel at finance and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma at foreign affairs, as well as Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who has sparked criticism for advocating a quirky diet to fight HIV/AIDS, South Africa's biggest killer.
He dropped home minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the leader of the Zulu-dominated Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), who has clashed with the president over new immigration rules and the outcome in the Zulu heartland of KwaZulu-Natal of the April 14 vote.
Mbeki however did give the IFP two deputy ministerial posts in the departments of public works and sport.
Marthinus van Schalkwyk, leader of the New National Party, the revamped version of the National Party that ruled during apartheid, was appointed minister of environmental affairs.
Mbeki's African National Congress (ANC) garnered 69.68 percent of votes cast in the election, the third since the end of apartheid, a vote of confidence which analysts said placed huge onus on the ruling party to deliver.
"The fact that the ANC came within a whisker of getting 70 percent of the vote shows that there is huge pressure on the delivery of promises," said Ebrahim Fakir, an analyst with the Johannesburg-based Centre for Policy Studies.
"But it is indeed a good team, with strong people in key positions including finance, justice and welfare. It shows the president has been thinking of the so-called five 'C's: continuity, competence, co-ordination, compatibility and coherence," he told AFP.
Mbeki retained some of his key ministers within the financial sector including Manuel in finance, who has been one of the top performing stars in the cabinet, which boded well for the next five years.
"What is the key, is really economic policy and how to bring about fundamental change we need. The message is one of stability, not doing anything radical and keeping to the fundamentals," said Judith February of the parliamentary watchdog organisation IDASA.
"Mbeki is saying we believe we have the right economic policies and because of that there will be greater redistribution to the poor," she told AFP.
Mbeki faces stiff challenges in his last term and has promised to deliver on ambitious election pledges to fight poverty, unemployment, the HIV/AIDS scourge and crime.
Unemployment hovers between 40 and 50 percent, according to various estimates, while many say poverty has deepened in the last decade.
The governing ANC had made steep promises in its manifesto: creating one million new jobs in five years; spending 100 billion rand (15 billion dollars, 12 billion euros) to improve infrastructure and halving poverty and unemployment by 2014.
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