PRESIDENT Nelson Mandela of South Africa said yesterday that his government still did not have a firm grip on power in a speech delivered ahead of local elections in violence torn KwaZulu Natal province.
In an apparent attempt to answer critics who say his African National Congress (ANC) has not delivered on its promises, Mr Mandela told audiences in Newcastle, KwaZulu Natal that although his party won the general election in April 1994, it was not fully in control.
"We are in office, but to actually gain power is going to take some time because we have to clean the police services.
"Our police services are being infiltrated by agents provocateurs who are planning day and night to overthrow the present government. But we are gradually getting control of the levers of power.
In a later speech in the black township of Madadeni, near Newcastle, Mr Mandela told supporters he did not mean a coup d'etat was being planned. "There are only one or two bad elements who have not reached the transition period," he said.
Mr Mandela added that the ANC had struggled to provide basic services to deprived areas partly because of the debts it had inherited from previous apartheid governments.
At a separate rally in central KwaZulu Natal, Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party, said recent statements by the ANC leader could spark violence during the local government elections on May 29th.
"If the president bans Zulu cultural accoutrements, this will be just the kind of provocation which might threaten peace in the forthcoming elections," he said, referring to a pledge by Mr Mandela to bar the carrying of spears, axes and shields.
More than 10,000 people have been killed in the province since the mid 1980s when ANC Inkatha rivalry erupted in violence. The killing has continued despite the relative calm in the rest of the country since the all race general election.
Referring to the violence, Mr Mandela said "There is peace in this province between Indians, coloureds [people of mixed race] and whites but it is Africans who are slaughtering each other.
"Many people in the rest of our country still regard us as being backward. What else can they say when you are behaving like animals, when you slaughter each other simply because you want to remain in power? There is a war between Africans in this province."
A spokesman for the national police commissioner, Mr George Fivaz, said the force was not aware of being infiltrated by saboteurs.