He is extremely highly rated among his peers and in the City.His departure, which will be seen as a severe blow to the company, is not expected to take place until after the company announces its results in May. PowerGen is thought to have begun the search for a replacement to Mr Rennocks, who has seen the company through the various stages of privatisation, an ambitious expansion drive and two share buy-backs.One source said yesterday: “He has had a Midas touch. “New York can do it, the other candidates won’t even be able to write checks anymore,” he jested in a reference to Steve Forbes, whose readiness to splash out $30m of his own money has been the main factor keeping him in the race.. MARY FAGAN

Industrial Correspondent
John Rennocks, PowerGen’s dynamic finance director, is unexpectedly to quit his post in a move which will shock the industry. Mr Rennocks is the mastermind behind the generator’s proposed pounds 1.95bn takeover bid for Midlands Electricity, now in the throes of a Monopolies and Mergers Commission investigation.

To call Mr Dole – the most plodding and cliche- mongering of candidates – a new man would be an exaggeration. But his decisive win in South Carolina, seemingly well suited to Mr Buchanan’s sternly Christian message, has given the Kansan new confidence. Unless he defeats Mr Dole there on “Super Tuesday” next week, Mr Alexander will call it quits. “If he beats me in Florida, Senator Dole will be the certain nominee.” If yesterday’s exit polls are right, he probably is already.Rattled by his poor second place in South Carolina at the weekend, Mr Buchanan has been adding yet more vitriol to his verbal onslaught against Mr Dole, even describing him as “liberal” – the dirtiest word in the Republican political lexicon and probably the only epithet not bestowed upon the solidly conservative Mr Dole during his 35 years in Congress.But rhetorical scorched earth tactics showed scant sign of paying off. Mr Buchanan vows to soldier on to San Diego, buttressed by a 25 to 30 per cent share of the Republican vote spread evenly across the country. And barring miracles, the Presidential life expectancy of Mr Alexander is only a week longer.A dismal fourth in South Carolina, the former Tennessee Governor will make his last stand in Florida, a state with 98 delegates which he has been cultivating for months. Even before yesterday, Mr Dole was starting to pull ahead in the delegate count with 90, against 60 for the publisher Steve Forbes, 39 for Pat Buchanan and 10 for Lamar Alexander.Defeat in Georgia especially would be a heavy blow for Mr Buchanan, the former commentator and Reagan speechwriter whose staunch religious conservatism and populist protectionism have made him the most aggressive foe of Mr Dole.

RUPERT CORNWELL

Washington
Senator Bob Dole was last night on his way to a smashing victory in yesterday’s batch of key primaries across the US – a win which could virtually settle the battle for the 1996 Republican nomination to face President Bill Clinton this autumn.Within seconds of the 7pm poll closing, Mr Dole was declared the winner in Vermont, one of the five New England states voting yesterday, while the NBC network projected him as winner in Georgia, the largest and most fiercely contested prize of the day with 42 delegates to August’s Republican convention in San Diego. Earlier, exit polls showed the newly reinstalled frontrunner ahead in all eight states which were holding primaries.Such a sweep would change the entire psychology of the race, creating an aura of inevitability and leaving Mr Dole’s remaining opponents no time to regroup in this month’s packed schedule of primaries, in which two-thirds of the 1,990 convention delegates will have been allocated when California votes on 26 March.At stake yesterday were 226 delegates, 208 in primaries in Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland and Colorado and Georgia, plus 18 in caucuses in Washington state – in all nearly one-quarter of the 996 needed to win. Many would prefer Cyril Ramaphosa, the ANC secretary-general, to inherit the throne. A former union negotiator, Mr Ramaphosa is viewed as being stronger and more resolute than Mr Mbeki.The ANC has been trying to play down rumours of Mr Mandela’s poor health and fears over the future of the country.

It points out that he always said he was going to step down when his term ended.”The fact is that there is only one person in this century who will be Nelson Mandela. We should not be looking for another and we should not be trying to measure everyone else in terms of Nelson Mandela,” said Saki Macozoma, a member of the ANC national executive.”What we must look forward to is a leadership which will be up to the task of taking over from him.”. What nature has decreed should not generate undue insecurity.”He then expressed unease at being singled out by some for praise at the expense of other important ANC leaders. The real aim of his statement appeared to be to promote his heir apparent, the ANC deputy president, Thabo Mbeki.He has long been the crown prince. Even before Mr Mandela chose him as his deputy, Mr Mbeki had been groomed in exile to take over as ANC leader by its former president, Oliver Tambo.

Nevertheless, Mr Mbeki’s mishandling of scandals last year involving the Rev Allan Boesak and the President’s estranged wife, Winnie, and his softly-softly approach with Nigeria’s military rulers, have not inspired much confidence. In a letter to the Johannesburg Sunday Times, he wrote: “Let me restate the obvious: I have long passed my teens; and the distance to my final destination is shorter than the road I have trudged over the years. The question on everyone’s lips is: “What happens after Mandela?” People have tended to personalise the government in the figure of Mr Mandela and attributed the country’s relative stability to his presence. True to his workaholic nature, Mr Mandela continued to hold meetings in between tests at the clinic.Worries over the his well-being are more political than sentimental.