South African President Thabo Mbeki was picked by Nelson Mandela as his successor, reward for his committment to the ANC and the fight against apartheid.

Thabo Mbeki, South Africa's second president of the post-Apartheid era, appeared destined for politics from birth. Born in Idutywa in the Transkei on the 18th of June 1942, Thabo Mbeki was the son of leading apartheid activist Govan Mbeki. Govan was a rare breed in those days, a South African born black man who had prevailed against the educational restrictions to obtain a University education.

As a consequence, Thabo was encouraged to read extensively, something which laid the platform for his later political activities.

Mbeki joined the ANC youth league at the age of fourteen but his schooling was interuppted due to the increasing number of strikes in the Eastern Cape region. At the age of seventeen, Mbeki moved to Johannesburg where he met other leaders who were to become cornerstones of the anti-apartheid struggle, Walter Sisulu and Duma Nokwe.

In the subsequent early 1960's, an exceptionally oppressive time in South African history, Mbeki was elected secretary of the African Students Association and pursued a correspondence course in economics from London University. In the late 60's, his father Govan was arrested along with Nelson Mandela and sentenced to life imprisonment during the notorious Rivonia Treason Trial

At the age of twenty, Thabo Mbeki left the country under strict instructions from the ANC who believed that he was too valuable a cog in its operations to risk being arrested under an increasingly suspicious and viscious apartheid government. He spent time in the UK where he completed a Masters degree in Economics in 1966 and worked with later ANC President Oliver Tambo in building up ANC relations abroad.

Mbeki followed military training in the Soviet Union (1970) with stints in Lusaka, Botswana, Swaziland and Nigeria. From Lusaka, his position as Director of Information was credited with turning the tide of international opinion against apartheid. When the ANC was unbanned in 1988, Mbeki was elected to head the ANC's Department of International Affairs, a credit to his perceived statesmanship, charisma and personable charm.

When the first Government of National Unity was declared following the first free elections in South Africa in 1994, President Nelson Mandela personally picked Thabo Mbeki to become the Deputy President of the country. As Mandela's role in the government became increasingly more as a figurehead, Mbeki began to assume greater control for the everyday running of the country.

Mbeki was elected ANC President in 1997, and was subsequently elected President of South Africa on the 14th of June 1999.