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.
KINGPIN: Marset allegedly laundered the proceeds of his drug enterprise by purchasing and sponsoring professional soccer teams and even put himself in the starting lineups Notorious Latin American narco trafficker Sebastian Marset, who eluded police for years, was handed over to US authorities after his arrest on Friday in Bolivia. Marset, a Uruguayan national who was on the US most-wanted list, was passed to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration at Santa Cruz airport in Bolivia, then put on a US airplane, Bolivian state television showed. “The arrest and deportation were carried out pursuant to a court order issued by the US justice system,” Bolivian Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo told reporters. The alleged kingpin was arrested in an upscale neighborhood of Santa
FAKE NEWS? ‘When the government demands the press become a state mouthpiece under the threat of punishment, something has gone very wrong,’ a civic group said The top US broadcast regulator on Saturday threatened media outlets over negative coverage of the Middle East war, after US President Donald Trump slammed critical headlines from the “Fake News Media.” The US president since his first term has derided mainstream media as “fake news” and has sued major outlets over what he sees as unfair coverage. Brendan Carr, head of the US Federal Communications Commission — which oversees the nation’s radio, television and Internet media — said broadcasters risked losing their licenses over news coverage. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will
SCANDAL: Other images discovered earlier show Andrew bent over a female and lying across the laps of a number of women, while Mandelson is pictured in his underpants A photograph of former British prince Andrew and veteran politician Peter Mandelson sitting in bathrobes alongside late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed on Friday in previously published documents. The image is believed to be the first known photograph of the two men with Epstein. They are currently engulfed in scandal in the UK over their ties to their mutual friend. The undated photograph, first reported by ITV News, shows King Charles III’s disgraced brother and former British ambassador to the US sitting barefoot outside on a wooden deck. They appear to have mugs with a US flag on them
INFLUTENTIAL THEORIST: Habermas was particularly critical of the ‘limited interest’ shown by German politicians in ‘shaping a politically effective Europe Jurgen Habermas, whose work on communication, rationality and sociology made him one of the world’s most influential philosophers and a key intellectual figure in his native Germany, has died. He was 96. Habermas’ publisher, Suhrkamp, said he died on Saturday in Starnberg, near Munich. Habermas frequently weighed in on political matters over several decades. His extensive writing crossed the boundaries of academic and philosophical disciplines, providing a vision of modern society and social interaction. His best-known works included the two-volume Theory of Communicative Action. Habermas, who was 15 at the time of Nazi Germany’s defeat, later recalled the dawn of
RSS