President Thabo Mbeki is still an Aids dissident, United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa told about 25Â 000 cheering supporters at a party rally in Umtata on Saturday.
The gathering, in the UDM’s heartland, was billed as the major rally of the UDM’s election campaign.
Holomisa said that when Mbeki first took office in 1999 he asked the people of South Africa a “silly question”.
“The question was, who told you that HIV causes Aids?” Holomisa said.
As a result the process of Aids-awareness education started by former president Nelson Mandela and then health minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma took a dive and even the African National Congress was divided on the issue.
“Why must we be the victims of one dissident … Thabo Mbeki is still an Aids dissident. He still owes an explanation and an apology to the nation.”
The UDM supporters at the rally, most of them wearing the party’s trademark yellow T-shirts, almost filled the stands of the city’s Independence Stadium and spilled on to the soccer field in the centre.
Also on the soccer pitch were six hardy Transkei ponies, which some non-motorised supporters had used to ride into town for the occasion.
The animals were let loose to graze as the speeches got under way.
Holomisa, who made a triumphant circuit of the stadium on the back of a bakkie when he arrived, told his supporters that in the 1999 election his party was accused of drawing most of its support from Umtata.
“Why it should be a shame to be strong in Umtata I do not know,” he said.
“But what I do know is that after April 14 the results will show that we have support in urban and rural areas across the Eastern Cape and indeed across the country.
“In many areas we are the only party that can gain significant support in ANC strongholds.”
He also said there could be no talk of real freedom for poor people in South Africa today.
“Freedom from apartheid when you are imprisoned by poverty is not real freedom,” he said.
Holomisa goes walkabout in East London area on Sunday and will visit rural areas of the Transkei later in the week.
Shortly before Holomisa arrived at the stadium, women and children were trampled underfoot in a stampede. However, no one appeared to be seriously injured. — Sapa
Special Report: Elections 2004