Former South African president Viljoen dies

JOHANNESBURG, Jan 5 (Reuters) Former South African president Marais Viljoen, a figurehead leader for the apartheid state in the 1970s and 1980s, has died at the age of 91, South Africa's SAPA news agency said today.

Viljoen, regarded as a moderate member of the white National Party, was non-executive state president from 1979-1984 before P W Botha took over the post and consolidated executive power in the presidency.

Viljoen earlier also served a brief stint as president in 1978 and held several cabinet positions in various National Party governments.

He died of heart failure yesterday, SAPA said.

He had lived quietly in Pretoria since his retirement in 1984 and played little role in South Africa's move from apartheid to multi-racial democracy under Nelson Mandela's African National Congress a decade later.

Botha, who brought a much more aggressive style to the presidency and became apartheid South Africa's last hardline white leader, died on October 31 at the age of 90.

REUTERS AKJ DS1630