VOTERS IN next week’s South African general election should support parties that uphold the constitution rather than ones that try to undermine it, the last president of apartheid-era South Africa, FW de Klerk, has said.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner explained that his public plea, which is being interpreted as a call to vote against the African National Congress (ANC), was rooted in a “residual responsibility” to the constitution he helped to form with the ruling party in the early 1990s.
“When the people of South Africa go to vote it is my hope that they will vote for the constitution and that they will seriously consider what parties they can entrust the constitution to,” he told reporters in Cape Town on Thursday without specifying any party.
Mr de Klerk, who was central to South Africa’s transition to democracy and left office in May 1994, said the country had witnessed “a sorry descent from the rule of law” in recent times, which he blamed on the ANC’s politicisation of state institutions. “The national prosecuting authority’s decision last week to drop the prosecution of [ANC president] Jacob Zuma I think may be and will be identified by future historians as the point at which South Africa began to stray from the rule of law.”
Mr de Klerk added: “Mr Zuma is an affable and astute politician. He may or may not become a good president. However, whatever his performance, he must accept that he is subject to the law and to the constitution.”
Meanwhile, the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) yesterday accused the ANC of employing “terror tactics” ahead of polling in the volatile KwaZulu-Natal province, where thousands of police and army have been deployed to ensure the regional election is declared free and fair.
According to an IFP statement, 13 party members were attacked and wounded by people loyal to the ANC in recent days. In February the IFP claimed one of its councillors was shot dead in a politically motivated attack.
“It is very clear to us as the IFP that we will have to contend with ANC terror tactics until the end of the elections,” the party said. It also claimed state institutions had “become branches of the ANC”.
In the mid-1990s, clashes in KwaZulu-Natal between the Zulu-dominated IFP and ANC supporters led to thousands of deaths. The run-up to the April 22nd poll has been much more peaceful to date.