Mbeki Loyalist Assails ANC

Ex-Defense Minister Suggests S. African Party Will Splinter

JOHANNESBURG, Oct. 8 -- South Africa's former defense minister on Wednesday launched a scathing attack against the ruling African National Congress and suggested that hundreds of members loyal to ousted president Thabo Mbeki were on the verge of forming a breakaway party.

"This is probably the parting of the ways," Mosiuoa Lekota, who resigned from the cabinet after Mbeki stepped down last month, said at a news conference at which he accused the ANC of abandoning its democratic ideals. "It seems we are serving today divorce papers."

The announcement sharpened tensions in South Africa, which is undergoing its most tumultuous political period since the ANC defeated white rule in 1994. Last month, the party moved against Mbeki after a court suggested he pressured prosecutors to file graft charges against his rival, ANC leader Jacob Zuma. Rumors of a split and public spats between Mbeki and Zuma factions have since consumed the party.

Some ANC leaders dismissed talk of schisms as overblown. Treasurer General Mathews Phosa told reporters Wednesday that "the marriage has not broken down" and that party leaders would listen to grievances. Zuma, who is expected to become South Africa's president next year, warned that "there is a limit to utilizing the ANC and ANC structures to destabilize the ANC."

A splinter party led by well-known liberation figures could fundamentally alter the political landscape in a nation so dominated by the ANC that critics say it is essentially a one-party state.

But analysts said a new party could be successful only if it outlined clear policy alternatives to the ANC. Even then, analysts said, it would be hard-pressed to organize and raise enough money before elections next spring.

Lekota, an anti-apartheid activist who spent eight years imprisoned on Robben Island, stopped short of declaring a new party and declined to name his supporters. He said ANC dissidents would meet within weeks to discuss how to "strengthen democracy" and would probably mobilize to challenge the ANC next year.

Lekota lambasted what he called the growth of violent rhetoric and tribalism within the ANC, and he slammed party leaders for failing to condemn comments by Youth League President Julius Malema, a firebrand who has vowed to "take up arms and kill" for Zuma.

But Lekota reserved his harshest words for ANC leaders who have called for a "political solution" to allegations of corruption against Zuma.

"When we were struggling for freedom, some of the people that joined our ranks, they thought that equality before the law meant that we would have access to the same universities as our white counterparts and live in the same suburbs," Lekota said. "They did not understand that even when we steal money, like any other thief, we will be locked up in jail. Equality before the law actually means both for good and for bad."

Mbeki fired Zuma as the nation's deputy president in 2005, after a Zuma adviser was convicted of soliciting bribes in connection with a multimillion-dollar arms deal. Zuma staged a comeback at a party conference in December, wresting control of the ANC's leadership from Mbeki.

Last month's court ruling dismissed the charges against Zuma but did not rule on his guilt or innocence.

Last week, Lekota complained in a letter to ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe that the party had veered from its "democratic norms." In a response letter, Transport Minister Jeff Radebe suggested that Lekota had flouted the "discipline of the organization" and accused him of "un-ANC" behavior.

"Put bluntly, you and those who share your views are giving notice to leave the ANC," Radebe wrote. "To you and all your cronies, we at the ANC say that what you are trying to demonstrate to the country is nothing but the last kicks of a dying horse."