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.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS