South African President Thabo Mbeki on Sunday ruled out changing the constitution to enable him to run for a third term amid speculation over who will lead Africa's biggest economy after elections in 2009, Reuters reported. Mbeki led the African National Congress (ANC) to a landslide victory in polls in 2004 but said the party had no plan to use its two-thirds parliamentary majority to alter the constitution's current limit on two presidential terms. "For a long time now the ANC has taken the position that we don't want to change the constitution ... and that remains our position," Mbeki told SABC television in an interview following Friday's opening of parliament. "By the end of 2009 I would have been in a senior position in government for 15 years and I think that's too long. After 15 years I really think I should step aside," he said. Mbeki was elected to succeed anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela as South Africa's president in 1999 and has guided the country through a period of political stability and its longest economic expansion on record. But political analysts say the succession has become an open race after the sacking of former Deputy President Jacob Zuma -- long regarded as the frontrunner to replace Mbeki -- in a corruption scandal last year. --more 22 21 Local Time 19 21 GMT
