Winnie comes out fighting in campaign for ANC power

Undaunted by accusations of murder, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela began her campaign for the deputy leadership of the ANC yesterday with a rare media interview in which she criticised her former husband's government for failing to deliver to the masses.

Mrs Mandela, who is standing for office in defiance of the ANC leadership, was interviewed in her mansion in Soweto. She was in rip-roaring form, attacking claims that she murdered the 14-year-old activist Stompie Seipei Moeketsi in her garden in the late 1980s.

She called Katiza Cebekhulu, the former bodyguard who recently claimed he saw her stab Stompie, a "liar and a lunatic". She dismissed Mr Cebekhulu's patron, the former British MP Baroness Nicholson, as a "mad cow". She cast aspersions on President Mandela for even looking at Mr Cebekulu's allegations.

Mrs Mandela says there is conspiracy against her by those who dislike her preaching the "truth", which was that the ANC's "high-handed" leadership had failed the people. A "Winniephobia" campaign , she says, had been whipped up since she was nominated for the deputy post.

Mrs Mandela's bid for the deputy leadership, which would put her within striking distance of the presidency, has alarmed ANC leaders. All other candidates for the deputy's post have been forced to step aside in favour of Jacob Zuma, an uncharismatic "consensus candidate" of whom the leadership approves. That makes the contest a two-horse race. Party officials can only hope the strategy succeeds. Earlier this year the leadership put up Mr Zuma's wife, Nkosazana, against Mrs Mandela for the leadership of the ANC's Women's League. Mrs Zuma was thrashed.

If the party is alarmed, white voters are yet more concerned. They remember her threat in 1986 that blacks would liberate South Africa "with our boxes of matches and out necklaces [execution in a burning tyre]".

Next week, Mrs Mandela will dominate the news when the Truth and Reconciliation Commission bows to her demands that the allegations against her be heard in public. Two weeks later, she will put herself forward for office at the ANC's conference at which President Mandela will stand down as party leader.