Mbeki: ANC won't disappoint SA

2004-04-16 18:06

Cape Town - President Thabo Mbeki on Friday praised the millions who voted for the African National Congress on Wednesday, and pledged the party would not disappoint them.

Writing in the ANC's online publication, ANC Today, Mbeki said the people had voted overwhelmingly for national unity and reconciliation.

"They voted to unite in action in a people's contract, together to create jobs, to fight poverty and build a better life for all," he said.

The majority of South Africans voted against the perpetuation of the racial and ethnic divisions of the past.

"Through the ballot box, they have spoken out loudly against all attempts to persuade them they belong to separate compartments, with competing interests.

"They have spoken loudly and said they have understood the truths the ANC has communicated to them, and understood the falsehoods that others have told."

'Can't blame ANC for problems of the past'

They were confident the ANC could be trusted to take good care of their future, and were equally convinced it would be wrong to entrust it to others.

The ANC's detractors, by trying to obliterate the memory of the racist past and denying its sustained impact on the present and the future, tried to attribute to the ANC and the democratic order all the problems inherited from the past.

"Unashamedly, they pretend these problems, that are many centuries old, could have been solved in a mere 10 years, and that failure to solve them constitutes an avoidable failure of our movement," he said.

But, as they were bound to, the people had firmly rebuffed all the desperate efforts to mislead them.

The ANC would continue working to eradicate the poverty and under-development still being experienced by the poor, which was the legacy of colonialism and apartheid, and could not be solved in 10 years.

'Victory of the African renaissance'

This included: creating more jobs; reducing poverty; building a nonracial and nonsexist South Africa, with sustained reduction of the racial and gender disparities; reinforcing national unity and reconciliation; and, further extending the frontiers of knowledge and culture.

The ANC would also work for a heightened contribution to the "victory of the African renaissance and the emergence of a just world".

This was what the people had voted for, and, as the ANC had done before, it would not disappoint the expectations of the masses, Mbeki said.

- SAPA