ANC moves left in pledge
2009-01-10 18:05
East London - The ANC vowed on Saturday to create jobs, improve education and health and fight crime in a shift to the left at the launch of its manifesto before this year's parliamentary election.
Party leader Jacob Zuma told thousands of supporters in the
coastal town of East London that the ANC manifesto would focus on five areas: job creation, health, education, food security and rural development, and fighting corruption and crime.
"The creation of decent work is at the centre of all our
economic policies. We will put in place a comprehensive
state-led industrial policy that will direct public and private
investment to support employment creation and broader economic
transformation," he said.
The pledge to use government intervention more to fight
poverty and secure jobs was welcomed by the ANC's leftist allies
- the labour federation Cosatu and the SACP.
"(The manifesto) commits the ANC government to develop an
industrial strategy that focuses on energy and food sovereignty
and security, on jobs and not profits as the key priority," the
party said.
Cope hard pressed to defeat ANC
But investors fear the left might pressure an ANC government to ditch policies that helped spur nearly a decade of growth in
Africa's biggest economy.
The ANC has ruled with a large majority since the end of apartheid in 1994, but is facing a challenge from the Congress of the People (Cope), a party of loyalists to former President Thabo Mbeki that broke away from the ANC last year.
Cope, led by former Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota, has not released its election programme, but it has signalled that it will adopt centrist, pro-business policies similar to those pursued by Mbeki during his nine years in office.
Although Cope would be hard pressed to defeat the ANC, the
new party could gain enough black votes to deny it an absolute
parliamentary majority at the election due around April.
Former President Nelson Mandela, who has distanced himself
from political life, did not attend the launch but urged the party to uphold its principles.
"We once more look to the ANC to provide leadership in
creating the circumstances for our people to enjoy the
democratic rights for which we all fought so bravely and with so
much sacrifice," local media reported him as saying.
Short on credibility
Zuma said the ANC would work towards a free and better
education for the poor and fight illiteracy. It would also
launch a national health insurance scheme and seek to halve the
rate of new Aids infections.
Opposition DA leader Helen Zille said the manifesto was long on promises, but short on credibility.
"Every one of Jacob Zuma's utterances is contradicted by the
experience in reality," she said.
Zille said the ANC had failed in the last years to cut South
Africa's high unemployment - now at around 23% -, erase
its chronic power shortages and bring people out of poverty.
She also condemned Zuma's aim to fight corruption, pointing to the charges of alleged corruption against the party leader.
A court will hand down a judgment on Monday on an appeal by prosecutors against a decision to throw out bribery, fraud and other charges against Zuma.
Re-opening the case could hurt the ANC president's image and almost certainly overlap with his campaign for the presidency.
(Reporting by Shafiek Tassiem, Writing by Agnieszka Flak;
editing by Sophie Hares)