Mbeki attack on opposition leader stirs up 'racism' storm

ANC set for runaway victory, but crippling social ills such as Aids, poverty and racial divisions remain

Just days before elections that mark another step away from South Africa's racially divided past, President Thabo Mbeki has stirred up a storm by making charges of racism against his political opponents.

Just days before elections that mark another step away from South Africa's racially divided past, President Thabo Mbeki has stirred up a storm by making charges of racism against his political opponents.

The opposition wants "an entrenched national division" in which South Africans would "polarise themselves into contending entities", Mr Mbeki wrote in a newsletter to the ruling African National Congress party. His caustic, though coded, attack drew a sharp reaction from its intended target: Tony Leon, the white leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA) party.

"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 re-impose a system of apartheid on its people," Mr Leon said.

The spat - the latest of many ill-tempered confrontations between the two men - highlights the sensitivity of race in South African politics a decade after apartheid. Critics charge that Mr Mbeki exploits the racism card to quell external criticism. Voters, however, are unconcerned - in electoral terms, the opposition can only nip at his heels before Wednesday's vote.

Polls are predicting the party will win a two-thirds majority, confirming its monopoly on power in South Africa and allowing it to amend the constitution. The expected result, however, will mask considerable disillusionment with the ANC. Although many regard it as the party of liberation, South Africa suffers crippling social ills: deep poverty, 40 per cent unemployment, the Aids pandemic and violent crime. One quarter of the 27 million potential voters, most of them young people, failed to register. There is speculation of a lower voter turnout, at least in comparison with the giant 1999 figure of 89 per cent.

Beatrice Bususiwe, a 43-year-old mother of five, sat on the pavement yesterday in Old Town, a rundown district in Johannesburg, selling foam cushions. In 1994 she voted for the ANC; this time she isn't going to bother. "I was happy then. But now I'm not going to waste my time," she said. "We have rubbish houses and no jobs, but there haven't been any politicians round here."

Isaac Ndhlovu, a street trader standing nearby, said he found a pool of blood as he set up his stall hours earlier. "Must have been another shooting last night," he said.

Many other voters remain grateful to the ANC, for ending apartheid and providing social services . The government has delivered running water, clean toilets, housing and electricity to millions of township residents. It has also boosted blacks in the jobs market through an affirmative action programme, though critics say only a privileged minority has benefited.

South African voters have little choice beyond the ANC. The opposition remains in disarray and offers no viable alternative. More than 30 parties are contesting the poll and none has managed to threaten the ANC's popularity.

Paradoxically, the New National Party - the former apartheid rulers - depends on the ANC for survival, through a power-sharing agreement in Western Cape province. Now that fingerhold on power is slipping fast. Polls give the NNP just 13 per cent support in Western Cape. Its white supporters, it seems, are fleeing to the DA or to Patricia de Lille, a flamboyant "Coloured" (mixed-race) politician who arrived at a recent rally on a Harley Davidson motorbike.

"The NNP has painted itself into a corner. I think it's heading for the political wilderness," said Judith February, an analyst in Cape Town.

In KwaZulu-Natal province, feared violence between ANC supporters and the Inkatha Freedom Party has largely failed to materialise, although tensions remain high.

In other rural areas, land is the burning issue. Although the government has pledged to return 30 per cent of white land to landless blacks by 2015, the land reform programme is proceeding at a snail's pace.

At a black township in Limpopo province, a group of black squatters are claiming a nearby white farm they say is rightfully theirs. "I am praying to God for this land," said 66-year-old Catherine Mafifi, but the farm's white owner said he would resist all attempts to claim it. "I want to farm here until I die," said Louis Nel, sipping a glass of fruit juice on his porch as the sun went down.