Parties that campaign only to oppose the African National Congress are also opposing its efforts to deal with poverty and unemployment, President Thabo Mbeki said on Thursday.
He was speaking to Rharhabe King Maxhoba Sandile and chiefs and counsellors at the Mngqesha Great Place north of King William’s Town, at the start of two days of electioneering in the Eastern Cape.
Mbeki said the ANC will be very willing to work together with other parties after the elections to address the problems ordinary people were facing.
It is “a very interesting thing” when parties say they are campaigning to oppose the ANC.
“What is that?” he said. “We are campaigning to oppose poverty, we are campaigning to oppose unemployment. We can’t go around campaigning to oppose other parties … It means, your majesty, they are also saying they are campaigning to oppose us so that we do not deal with these problems of poverty and unemployment.”
He said those parties are in fact saying people should vote for them so that they can be defeated, “which is fine”, he said.
It would be wrong for people to elect a provincial or national government that then turns its back on the people for the next five years.
“It becomes important that we don’t only say ‘vote ANC’. We must go beyond that and vote ANC so that we can work together to solve these problems.”
Earlier, Mbeki was presented with a cow and an ox by Sandile, who is king of the Western Xhosa.
Standing outside the cattle kraal, Sandile told Mbeki the cow was for his elderly mother to milk and the black ox for him to feast on.
Women journalists were barred from the presentation by tribal officials, who said their presence was culturally taboo. — Sapa
A cow and an ox for Mbeki