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.
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