African National Congress accused of 'terror tactics'

Johannesburg: South Africa's Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) on Friday accused its long-time rival, the ruling African National Congress (ANC), of employing "terror tactics" and wounding 13 of its members in attacks ahead of next week's general election.

Tensions between the parties go back to the apartheid era when the two fought over control of KwaZulu-Natal, the traditional home of ANC leader Jacob Zuma's Zulu tribe. He is expected to become president after the April 22 poll.

Thousands of people were killed in clashes at the time. There are no signs that violence on that scale will be repeated in the election period.

However, some analysts who have been monitoring violence in KwaZulu-Natal - the most populous province and the centre of the sugar and shipping industries - are concerned over signs of looming conflict before the poll.

"The ANC, carrying all sorts of dangerous weapons and in the company of the SAPS [South African Police Service], invaded houses of IFP members under the pretext that they were campaigning," Blessed Gwala, IFP member of the Provincial Legislature of KwaZulu-Natal, said in a party statement. "Instead, they assaulted people and 13 of them got injured."

The ANC is on course to win the election, but faces its biggest test since coming to power at the end of white-minority rule in 1994.

Zuma yesterday urged his supporters to keep up campaigning in the final days to elections, saying the party's message has been bolstered by the end of his graft case.

"We have now entered the siyanqoba [victory] phase of our 2009 election campaign," he said in a letter to supporters of the African National Congress (ANC) ahead of Wednesday's elections.

"The decision of the National Prosecuting Authority to withdraw charges against me provides an opportunity for the movement and the country to put this matter behind us, and to focus on the central task of the moment - to achieve a decisive mandate to intensify the struggle to achieve a better life for all," he said.

Zuma is set to hold a series of rallies in the run-up to his final campaign stop in Johannesburg tomorrow, when tens of thousands of people are expected fill a major stadium.

Organisers are setting up live broadcasts of the event to be shown in other stadiums around the country.

Top ANC official Nomvula Mokonyane told reporters yesterday the party had spent 200 million rands (Dh81.7 million) on the campaign, but did not say how it was financed.

Prosecutors earlier this month dropped corruption charges against Zuma, after an eight-year investigation into a scandal surrounding a multibillion dollar arms deal. They said the decision was not based on the merits of the case against him, but because top investigators had abused the legal process for political gain.

The corruption case has overshadowed the ANC's actual campaign, with promises to rein in rampant crime and fight poverty. The opposition has seized the case as a weapon against Zuma, accusing him of lacking the moral authority to crack down on government corruption.

Polls still tip the ANC to sweep to victory with at least 60 per cent of the vote, leaving the opposition to campaign mainly in an effort to deny the party the two-thirds majority it needs to amend the constitution.