South African President Thabo Mbeki was set to respond to growing public unrest by acknowledging yesterday that his government needs to do more to tackle the nation's rampant crime rate in his state of the union address.
In the eight years since becoming president, Mbeki has cemented the country's position as Africa's economic powerhouse and forged an increasingly high-profile position on the international stage.
He still enjoys relatively high poll ratings and his ruling African National Congress party faces no serious challenge to the grip on power that it has held since the end of apartheid 13 years ago.
But while he was due to use his annual address at parliament in Cape Town to proclaim South Africa is living through an "age of hope," he was unlikely to duck a growing perception that crime is at crisis point.
Around 50 people are murdered every day while more than half a million burglaries or robberies were reported last year.
Mbeki recently insisted most citizens do not feel crime is out of control but official sources said one could expect some "self-criticism" from the president who would "not ignore the reality of perceptions" about security.
Veteran political commentator Max du Preez said the government had been undermined by its willingness to downplay the seriousness of the situation.
"The government's denial of the scale of the problem has seriously dented its credibility among the citizens -- all the way into the heart of the ruling party structures," he wrote in Johannesburg's the Star daily.
There are increasing signs as well that big business, previously keen to stay onside with Mbeki, is running out of patience over the crime situation.
A mass newspaper advertising campaign by one of the country's big four banks, which would have urged Mbeki to do more to tackle crime in his speech, was pulled at the last moment after pressure from the government and fellow heads of industry.
Mbeki was also expected to deliver a stout defense of his economic record, especially since his re-election for a second and final five-year term in 2004.
He was due in particular to point to an average growth rate of 4.5 percent in the last three years as well as big increases in private and public investment.
The government also proclaims that around half a million jobs have been created every year since his re-election but the jobless rate is still estimated to be as high as 40 percent.
Despite the emergence of a black middle class in the 13 years since the end of apartheid, millions of households are still living in abject poverty and the wealth gap between the average white and black family is still a major bone of contention.
"For South Africans living in communities wracked by under-development, the country's much-vaunted `sound economic indicators' do not mean much," said Karima Brown, political editor of Business Day.
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