ministers – including Deputy President Mlambo-Ngcuka and Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel – announced that they would also resign. Mbeki's resignation took effect on 25 September, and he was replaced as national president by Kgalema Motlanthe, who had been elected ANC deputy president at the Polokwane conference. Post-presidency Party politics After his resignation from the presidency, Mbeki retained his ANC membership but retreated from party politics. In the meantime, the Congress of the People (Cope) was founded as a breakaway party, composed largely of former ANC members known to be Mbeki loyalists. There were rumours that Mbeki was involved in Cope and would perhaps defect to it, especially after his mother Epainette, widow of ANC stalwart Govan, began attending Cope election rallies in the family's native Eastern Cape. According to political analyst Susan Booysen, although Mbeki "would never emerge from the silent, invisible wings onto centre stage... the whole Cope plot carried the 'Mbeki' stamp." Mbeki began again to appear at ANC events and to comment on ANC politics from around 2011. Although he has since said that he continued to vote for the ANC in the interim, he did not campaign on its behalf at any time during the Zuma presidency, which lasted between 2009 and 2018. In more recent years, he has been fairly vocal in reflecting publicly about perceived problems in the ANC and its leadership and about the country's economic problems and policies. International mediation Motlanthe asked Mbeki to remain in his role as mediator in Zimbabwe after his resignation in 2008, and he later returned to Zimbabwe, in 2020, to mediate a further political dispute. He also continued to chair the long-serving AU High-level Implementation Panel for Sudan and South Sudan, which in 2016 brokered an agreement between warring Sudanese parties to begin peace negotiations. Although he remained critical of the UN's interventions in Africa, he also chaired the UN Economic Commission for Africa High-Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa, which was established in collaboration with the AU in 2011. Philanthropy The Thabo Mbeki Foundation was launched on 10 October 2010, ahead of a three-day conference. Its mission centres around Mbeki's trademark "African renaissance," and the objective of promoting Africa's political, social, economic, and cultural development. It was launched in tandem with the Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute, which aims to train leaders capable of contributing to the foundation's objectives. Personality and public