JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's ruling African National Congress denied on Monday that President Thabo Mbeki had asked, and failed, to get the support of the party's leadership for a third term as ANC president.
Mbeki, who took over as ANC leader from Nelson Mandela in 1997, has signalled he intends to stand again at a party congress in December despite opposition from rank-and-file activists, many of whom support his rival, ANC Deputy President Jacob Zuma.
He is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term as the country's president in 2009, but is not prevented from running again for the ANC top job.
The ANC has overwhelming electoral support in South Africa, traditionally making the winner of its leadership race a shoo-in to lead the country.
South Africa's Business Day newspaper reported on Monday that the Mbeki re-election bandwagon hit a roadblock last weekend when the ANC's National Executive Committee refused to endorse his candidacy.
The NEC is composed of some five dozen officials, including cabinet ministers, leading ANC activists and representatives of the South African Communist Party, which is in a formal alliance with the ANC.
The newspaper quoted an anonymous NEC member as saying the South African leader's power play had triggered a "fierce debate" between a pro-Mbeki wing and others who are determined to see a fresh face at the helm of the party.
"There wouldn't have been any discussion of the president serving a third term. That didn't happen," ANC Secretary General Kgalema Motlanthe said in a press conference at the party's headquarters in Johannesburg on Monday.
ANC spokesman Smuts Ngonyama also described the report as inaccurate, though he added that Mbeki had during the meeting "introduced" a debate on how the party should react to the intense media speculation over the leadership race.
Their remarks came amid increased political manoeuvring by candidates believed to be interested in heading the party that has ruled Africa's economic powerhouse virtually unopposed since the end of the apartheid era in 1994.
Zuma, fired by Mbeki in 2005 in connection with a corruption scandal, has all but declared he will seek the leadership as he tours the country in an American-style election campaign that has fired up his native Zulu heartland and leftist supporters.
Mbeki loyalists, including much of the pro-business wing of the ANC, have warned Zuma could tilt the party dangerously to the left, endangering the strong economic growth that has generally marked Mbeki's eight years in power.
They have also used the corruption allegations hovering over Zuma - although the case collapsed last year, he is expected to be recharged - as well as his embarrassing 2006 rape trial to underscore their belief he is unsuitable for the top ANC job.
While compromise candidates have arisen, notably businessmen Tokyo Sexwale and Cyril Ramaphosa, their hesitancy to declare their intentions coupled with a failure to fire the imagination of the ANC faithful has fuelled Mbeki third-term talk.
"I think we are going to see Thabo Mbeki re-elected ANC president," said Willie Breytenbach, a professor of politic science at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa's Western Cape province.
"He still controls all the levels of power."
Others, however, have noted that the ANC clearly indicated at a policy conference in June that it would prefer its leader also be its candidate in presidential elections, a statement seen at the time as a blow to Mbeki's bid for a third term.
