Former state president PW Botha has rejected a claim that he encouraged a right-wing coup plotter to leave politics and "get a movement with an iron fist". State witness Lourens du Plessis earlier testified at the Boeremag treason trial in Pretoria that he had visited Botha in 2001 to discuss the political situation in the country.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=65906">PW Botha ‘advised right-wingers'</a>
The African National Congress in the Eastern Cape on Tuesday formally apologised for the disruption of three Democratic Alliance election meetings in the province last month. The apology follows incidents in which an ANC sound truck with 15Â 000 watt speakers was used to blast DA meetings in East London and Port Elizabeth.
Special Report: Elections 2004
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>President Thabo Mbeki on Thursday rejected calls for the Transkei to become South Africa’s 10th province. He was speaking to several thousand African National Congress supporters at a pre-election imbizo at the Great Place of Pondo King Mpondombini Sigcawu near Lusikisiki.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3_fl2.asp?o=40922">Special Report: Elections 2004</a>
Ten years ago he was living in a presidential palace, with a gold-braided uniform, a bevy of bodyguards and a country at his command. In the visitors’ book in the palace’s elegant foyer, there was a warm message from Nelson and Winnie Mandela, praising him as a progressive leader who had brought his people ”back into the centre of the struggle”.
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>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.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3_fl2.asp?o=40922">Special Report: Elections 2004</a>
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>When President Thabo Mbeki entered the crowded lounge of the Xhola home in Despatch’s Khayamandi on Friday, an elderly man rose to offer his chair. But the president didn’t take it. "[Mbeki] said he is younger than that old man and he said he would go sit there on the floor," said the household matriarch afterwards.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3_fl2.asp?o=40922">Special Report: Elections 2004</a>
![]()
A row has broken out over a claim by President Thabo Mbeki that a Democratic Alliance councillor in Port Elizabeth refused to walk in squatter areas for fear of getting her feet dirty. Mbeki made the allegation on Friday during a day of campaigning in the Nelson Mandela metropole.
Special Report: Elections 2004
![]()
President Thabo Mbeki was presented with a cow and an ox on Thursday morning as he kicked off two days of electioneering in the Eastern Cape. The presentation was made at the Mngqesha Great Place of Maxhoba Sandile, king of the Rharhabe or Western Xhosa.
Special Report: Elections 2004
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.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=33497">A cow and an ox for Mbeki</a>
Former security policeman Gideon Nieuwoudt was cross-examined at length on Wednesday on his reasons for killing the so-called Motherwell Four in a 1989 car-bomb explosion. At one point Advocate Kessie Naidoo, representing the families of three of the four, accused him of pretending not to understand a question.
Nieuwoudt would have lied under oath