South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki launched a stinging attack on his political opponents on Friday, saying they wanted to divide the country back into competing camps split along ethnic and racial lines.
In his last weekly newsletter ahead of general elections on Wednesday, Mbeki said the ruling African National Congress was determined to speak for all South Africans, while the opposition backed a return to the conflicts of apartheid.
"Our opponents propagate the view that the masses of our people should ... polarise themselves into contending entities with no shared destiny," he said in the newsletter, published on the ANC Web site.
"They characterize the entrenched national division for which they are working as the very essence of our democracy," the president said.
The ANC are virtually assured of victory in next week's poll, which marks a decade of democracy in South Africa.
But opposition leaders are keen to prevent the party from winning a two-thirds majority in parliament, saying this would lead to a one-party dominance.
A majority of that size would also allow the ANC to amend the constitution.
Opposition leader Tony Leon, who heads the Democratic Alliance, said he was alarmed by Mbeki's remarks.
"He misrepresents his opponents, mischaracterizes their motives and maligns their integrity," Leon said in a statement.
"There is nothing so calculated to polarise the people of South Africa as the idea that anyone who disagrees with the ANC is seeking to divide the country and to re-impose a system of apartheid on its people."
In a veiled reference to comments last week from Mangosuthu Buthelezi, leader of the rival Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), Mbeki said "cutting the ANC down to size" was the sole aim of the opposition, rather than offering alternate programs.
Officials from the Zulu-based IFP, which has vowed to stop the ANC from winning control of the restive province of KwaZulu-Natal, were not immediately available for comment.
The ANC hopes to win the only two of nine provinces which it does not now control -- KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape.
Mbeki also criticized opponents he said were against affirmative action, minimum wages and protecting workers rights.
"All of this is nothing but a camouflaged message that black upliftment is contrary to the interests of the white section of our population," he said.
"One of the central issues that will face the electorate ... will be to decide whether we want to conduct ourselves as a diverse but united nation, or prefer to divide ourselves into polarised and competing political, ethnic and racial factions," Mbeki said.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
STEADFAST DART: The six-week exercise, which involves about 10,000 troops from nine nations, focuses on rapid deployment scenarios and multidomain operations NATO is testing its ability to rapidly deploy across eastern Europe — without direct US assistance — as Washington shifts its approach toward European defense and the war in Ukraine. The six-week Steadfast Dart 2025 exercises across Bulgaria, Romania and Greece are taking place as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches the three-year mark. They involve about 10,000 troops from nine nations and represent the largest NATO operation planned this year. The US absence from the exercises comes as European nations scramble to build greater military self-sufficiency over their concerns about the commitment of US President Donald Trump’s administration to common defense and
RSS