Mbeki has mediated in difficult and complex issues on the African continent including Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo ( DRC ), Côte d ' Ivoire, and some important peace agreements.

Thabo Mbeki has also been criticized for responding on negative comments made about governance by accusing them of racism.

Mbeki has been a notably powerful figure in African politics, positioning South Africa as a regional power broker and also promoting the idea that African political conflicts should be solved by Africans.

Mbeki has sometimes been characterised as remote and academic, although in his second campaign for Presidency in 2004, many observers described him as finally relaxing into a more traditional campaign mode, sometimes dancing at events and even kissing babies.

Mbeki has used his position on the world stage to call for an end to global apartheid, a term he uses to describe the disparity between a small minority of rich nations and a great number of impoverished states in the world, arguing that a " global human society based on poverty for many and prosperity for a few, characterised by islands of wealth, surrounded by a sea of poverty, is unsustainable ".

However, through the Tripartite Alliance and the sitting of many SACP members on the ANC's NEC, the SACP has wielded influence from within the ANC, often serving as an ideological opposition against the presidency and socio-economic policies of Thabo Mbeki ( 1999 – 2008 ); this became most apparent with the ouster of Mbeki from the presidencies of both the party ( 2007, by vote ) and the government ( 2008, by ANC party recall ) and his eventual replacement in both offices with Jacob Zuma, who is widely seen as being more conciliatory to the ideological demands of both the SACP and COSATU.

This concept has been popularized by South African President Thabo Mbeki during his term of office, heralding the beginning of The African Renaissance, and it continues to be a key part of the post-apartheid intellectual agenda.

Despite its lack of scientific acceptance, HIV / AIDS denialism has had a significant political impact, especially in South Africa under the presidency of Thabo Mbeki.

TAC has been credited with forcing the reluctant government of former South African President Thabo Mbeki to begin making antiretroviral drugs available to South Africans.

However, he has vigorously opposed the non-mainstream medical views promoted by former President Thabo Mbeki and other senior ANC members.

Being openly critical of the apartheid system during that era, both at home and abroad, he has recently been quoted by President Thabo Mbeki as the man who called upon the Apartheid leadership to " do something brave " and create partnership with the black majority in the ' 80s.

* 31 January – Thabo Mbeki, the President of South Africa, has a narrow escape when he is nearly hit by a car shortly after the African Union heads-of-state summit in Abuja, Nigeria.

During her many trips to South Africa, she has received awards and recognition from former President Nelson Mandela and served on the Texas Host Committee for the visit of President, Thabo Mbeki.

She has given recitals for Presidents Thabo Mbeki and Nelson Mandela.

* South Africa-President Thabo Mbeki has condemned the series of explosions on London's transport system: " As South Africa, we join the rest of the international community in condemning any acts of terrorism ".

Zuma, in response to the ANC, said that " President Thabo Mbeki has taken a decision regarding my presence in government and cabinet.

Mbeki received international recognition for his political achievements including the renaming ( at Mandela's suggestion ) of the recently opened Health building at Glasgow Caledonian University.

He received a special presidential award from President Nelson Mandela in 1994 as well as the presidential sport achievement award from President Thabo Mbeki in 2001.

* Sewgolum received a posthumous achievement award from President Thabo Mbeki in 2003.

* 1987 – Govan Mbeki is released from custody after serving 24 years of a life sentence for terrorism and treason.

Although Mbeki did not generally make a point of befriending or courting reporters, his columns and news events often yielded good results for his administration by ensuring that his message is a primary driving force of news coverage.

Indeed, in initiating his columns, Mbeki stated his view that the bulk of South African media sources did not speak for or to the South African majority, and stated his intent to use ANC Today to speak directly to his constituents rather than through the media.

Rather than publicly criticising Mugabe's government, Mbeki chose ' quiet diplomacy ' over ' megaphone diplomacy ' - his term for the West's increasingly forthright condemnation of Mugabe's rule.

In the face of laws restricting public assembly and freedom of the media, restricting campaigning by the MDC for the 2005 Zimbabwe parliamentary elections, President Mbeki was quoted as saying: I have no reason to think that anything will happen … that anybody in Zimbabwe will act in a way that will militate against the elections being free and fair.

Mbeki attempted to restore dialogue between Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change in the face of denials from both parties.

In a leaked letter to Jacob Zuma in October 2008, just-resigned President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki alluded to the role the ANC created for her in the anti-apartheid activism:

NEPAD is a merger of two plans for the economic regeneration of Africa: the Millennium Partnership for the African Recovery Programme ( MAP ), led by Former President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa in conjunction with Former President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and President Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria ; and the OMEGA Plan for Africa developed by President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal.

An article Also in 2000, the Johannesburg Mail & Guardian reported that in a leaked text for a speech Mbeki was to give to an ANC caucus, Mbeki claimed that the CIA and Western drug companies were secretly promoting the view that HIV causes AIDS in order to increase sales of anti-HIV drugs.

" When he initially moved to Australia, he had cited the South African government's lax attitude to crime in that country as a reason for the move, leading to a spat with Thabo Mbeki, who, speaking of Coetzee's novel Disgrace stated that " South Africa is not only a place of rape ".

Former President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki facilitated, under the auspices of SADC, a Zimbabwean Government of Power-Sharing between ZANU-PF, the Movement for Democratic Change – Tsvangirai and the Movement for Democratic Change – Mutambara.

She appeared in performances for Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki and starred as Maria ( the lead role ) in West Side Story for Spier Opera Company in Cape Town.

Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, acting for President Thabo Mbeki, signed it into law on 29 November, and it became law the following day, one day before the Constitutional Court's order would otherwise have come into force.

Indeed, far from embracing their common victory against the patent rights of multinational companies who were not making affordable drugs available, President Thabo Mbeki began promoting the AIDS denialist view that HIV might not cause AIDS, and that AIDS medications were more toxic than helpful, inviting foreign AIDS denialists to advise his government.

According to TAC's founder, two million South Africans died prematurely of AIDS during the term of former President Mbeki, and many of these deaths could have been prevented by timely implementation of access to anti-HIV drugs.

Although the Cabinet voted to reaffirm that South African AIDS policy is based on the evidence that HIV causes AIDS, former President Thabo Mbeki continued to support the AIDS denialist position, as did his Minister of Health, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.

She was widely seen as following an AIDS policy in line with the ideas of South African President Thabo Mbeki, who for a time publicly expressed doubts about whether HIV caused AIDS.

After the conference, sixty-five of the world's leading HIV / AIDS scientists ( most of them were attending the conference ) asked in a letter that Thabo Mbeki dismiss Tshabalala-Msimang.

* 10 October – State President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki states that AIDS drugs are dangerously toxic to people and questions whether HIV or poverty is the true cause of Aids

Following Zuma's accession to the ANC leadership in 2007 and Mbeki's resignation as president in 2008, the Mbeki faction of former ministers led by Mosiuoa Lekota split away from the ANC to form the Congress of the People.

The atrocity was reportedly condemned strongly by South African president Thabo Mbeki and Winnie Mandela, among others, who openly spoke in favour of Marike de Klerk.

The talks were mediated by South African President Thabo Mbeki.

On 15 September 2008, the leaders of the 14-member Southern African Development Community witnessed the signing of the power-sharing agreement, brokered by South African leader Thabo Mbeki.

At the start of 2000, then President Thabo Mbeki vowed to promote economic growth and foreign investment by relaxing restrictive labour laws, stepping up the pace of privatisation, and cutting unneeded governmental spending.

He is also the brother of Moeletsi Mbeki.

Thabo Mbeki was the executive face of government in South Africa from 1994.

Mbeki created employment in the middle sectors of the economy and oversaw a fast growing black middle class with the implementation of BEE.

Born and raised in Mbewuleni, what is now the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, Mbeki is one of four children of Epainette and Govan Mbeki.

His parents were both teachers and activists in a rural area of ANC strength, and Mbeki describes himself as " born into the struggle "; a portrait of Karl Marx sat on the family mantelpiece, and a portrait of Mohandas Gandhi was on the wall.

Mbeki attended primary school in Idutywa and Butterworth and acquired a high school education at Lovedale, Alice.

During this time, the ANC was banned and Mbeki was involved in underground activities in the Pretoria-Witwatersrand area.

In December 1961, Mbeki was elected secretary of the African Students ' Association.

Govan Mbeki had come to the rural Eastern Cape as a political activist after earning two university degrees ; he urged his family to make the ANC their family, and of his children, Thabo Mbeki is the one who most clearly followed that instruction, joining the party at age 14 and devoting his life to it thereafter.

Mbeki married his wife Zanele ( née Dlamini ) at Farnham Castle, in the United Kingdom, in 1974.

After leaving the Eastern Cape, Thabo Mbeki lived in Johannesburg, working with Walter Sisulu.

Mbeki spent the early years of his exile in the United Kingdom.

In 1973, Mbeki was sent to Botswana, where he engaged the Botswana government in discussions to open an ANC office there.

While in exile, his brother Jama Mbeki, a supporter of the rival Pan Africanist Congress, was killed by agents of the Lesotho government in 1982 while attempting to assist the Lesotho Liberation Army.