Stalwarts believe the party has lost its way

Bloemfontein: As the ANC celebrated its 100th birthday yesterday in a 100 million rand (Dh45 million) commemoration, many were clamouring for the party itself to clean up its act after nearly 18 years at the head of Africa's most powerful economy.

Once the yoke of apartheid was thrown off, the ANC began ruling South Africa in a blaze of international goodwill that idolised it as moral beacon for a troubled continent and world.

Now, this image has dimmed as critics accuse ANC leaders of indulging in the spoils of office, squandering and raping mineral resources and engaging in vicious power struggles.

Even as party leaders rallied in Bloemfontein cloaked in self-congratulatory slogans such as "Unity in Diversity" and "100 Years of Selfless Struggle", in the nearby farming town of Thaba Nchu, two anti-apartheid veterans in their 80s seethed at what they saw as the betrayal of their ideals.

"Selfless rule, my foot!" spluttered 84-year-old Sally Motlana, widow of the late Dr Nthato Motlana, an anti-apartheid activist who was Mandela's doctor.

Speaking to Reuters in the house of one of the earlier presidents of the ANC, James Sebe Moroka, she and Moroka's daughter-in-law Gladys Moroka, 80, railed against Zuma and his government, criticising the power struggle that forced out president Thabo Mbeki and attacking the self-enrichment "gravy train" that they said tarnished the top echelons of the party. "The only thing that makes me proud of the ANC is the liberation of the people of South Africa. But the present government has nothing that makes me proud," said Motlana. "The anger in me could kill a human being."