S.Africa's Mbeki, shrewd and under fire

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - President Thabo Mbeki is seen as a consummate tactician inside his ruling ANC party but has been accused of stifling dissent as his government struggles with an AIDS epidemic, widespread poverty and crime.

Mbeki is constitutionally barred from running for president again when his term ends in 2009 but he can be re-elected as ANC party leader during a December 16-20 conference.

First elected in 1999 to succeed Nelson Mandela as South Africa's second black president, Mbeki has presided over an economic boom.

A long-time member of the ANC and son of a senior party leader, Mbeki joined the ANC Youth League at 14 and became active in student politics.

"I was born into the struggle," he says.

Mbeki, who was born in June 1942, left South Africa to pursue a masters degree in economics in England and military training in the Soviet Union. He backed the ANC's armed campaign against apartheid and spent years lobbying against apartheid across the world.

Mbeki is seen as a shrewd and tough strategist in the ANC who is more comfortable in small groups than in front of crowds.

He has been mediating in African hotspots such as Zimbabwe, but has come under relentless fire at home. Critics say he has undermined South Africa's democratic credentials by using state institutions to purge opponents, something he denies.

Mbeki has infuriated AIDS activists by questioning accepted AIDS science while the disease kills about 1,000 people a day.

His pro-business policies are credited with yielding one of the most prosperous eras in South Africa's history.

But millions of impoverished South Africans still live in townships, glaring reminders of the white minority rule he fought against in exile.

(Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Stephen Weeks)