South Africa: Thabo Mbeki labels opposition "unholy alliance"

Mbeki made the remarks while addressing about 250 party activists, including newly-elected councillors at the ANC's victory celebration in Midrand just north of Johannesburg. The ANC, which under the leadership of former President Nelson Mandela won the 1994 elections that ended decades of apartheid, took about 59 per cent in Tuesday's communal elections, a drop from the 66 per cent it took in national elections last year.

The mostly white-dominated Democratic Alliance, which includes the Democratic Party (DP), New National Party (NNP) and Federal Alliance (FA), gained at the expense of the ANC.

The alliance drew increasing support from coloureds, as those of mixed race are called, and other groups disenchanted with the slow pace of progress since the ANC took over. But Mbeki said the vote indicated voters have confidence in the ANC as an agent of change. "By their straight forward, categorical and unequivocal statements, the masses of our people have said no to all those who are opposed to change.

"They have said no to the perpetuation of a racist order that would forever condemn the majority of the citizens of our country to the position of subservience to which the apartheid system consigned them," he was quoted as saying by the South African Press Association.

Standing behind a podium lavishly decorated with ANC colours, Mbeki said voters had rebuffed "a decades-old offensive against their organisation, the ANC, an offensive which has continued to pursue the hopeless objective of seeking to discredit the ANC in the eyes of the masses of the people".

No opposition figures or parties were identified by name, but Mbeki assured the party faithful and a handful of diplomats that those who voted for the ANC had chosen to believe the truth rather than be "seduced by untruths and propaganda".

Earlier, a spokesman for the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) said, based on 97,5 per cent of the votes in Tuesday's local government election calculated by late Thursday, the ANC had the support of 59 per cent of the electorate, compared to the 22 per cent of the Democratic Alliance (DA), which includes preponderantly white parties, and nine per cent of the Zulu nationalist Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP).

(sda)