SOUTH AFRICA:South Africa's ruling party opened a key conference yesterday with President Thabo Mbeki pledging fresh action on the country's potentially-explosive poverty situation.
In his opening address to the African National Congress (ANC) meeting, the party leader said many gains had been made since the end of apartheid but there remained "enormous racial, gender and class disparities in the distribution of income, wealth and opportunity".
He was speaking to 1,500 senior party members engaged in a heated debate as to whether the ANC has betrayed its liberation ideals by embracing big business.
The question of who will succeed Mr Mbeki as president of the ANC is also dominating discussions. Left-wing factions are calling for a more vigorous stance against social deprivation in a country with unemployment unofficially estimated at 40 per cent. They have also aligned themselves to controversial ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma who is bidding to capture the party's leadership, normally an automatic stepping-stone to the presidency.
Mr Mbeki took a swipe at some of his opponents yesterday, rejecting suggestions that those people disadvantaged by apartheid have not benefited from the change in government.
He held out an olive branch to the ANC's alliance partners in government, the South African Community Party (SACP) and the trade union umbrella group Cosatu, saying the tripartite grouping would "survive and thrive". However, he signalled his annoyance the way in which both organisations had recently openly criticised him.
"The ANC has never sought to prescribe to the SACP the policies it should adopt, the programmes of action it should implement and the leaders it should elect. In this context, the SACP has always understood that it could not delegate its socialist tasks to the ANC," he said.
Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi launched a fresh attack on the ANC leadership yesterday. Urging the ruling party to move "from the boardrooms to the streets", he said: "Africa and the rest of the world is full of many examples of mass liberation movements such as the ANC suddenly turning into an elitist club of the selected few after liberation."