Tutu blasts "unedifying" ANC leadership race, urges don't shame us

Nov 9, 2007, 10:28 GMT

Johannesburg - South African Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu has termed the divisive race for the leadership of the ruling African National Congress an 'unedifying spectacle' and urged ANC members not to choose leaders who 'will make us hang our heads in shame.'

The popular Anglican archbishop was writing in the weekly Mail & Guardian newspaper a day after a court ruled against attempts by ANC presidential front-runner Jacob Zuma to block a state investigation into allegations of corruption against him.

Former state deputy president Zuma is battling it out with incumbent President Thabo Mbeki for the leadership of the ANC, to be decided at its December 16-20 party conference.

Thursday's rulings in the Supreme Court of Appeal raise the spectacle of Zuma heading into the conference charged with corruption in a 1990s state arms deal.

The two-horse leadership contest has been a bitter affair so far, characterized by mudslinging and mutual recriminations from both sides.

A number of senior ANC members, concerned for party unity, are pushing compromise candidates such as former ANC leaders turned businessmen Cyril Ramaphosa and Tokyo Sexwale.

Tutu, in his article, also reiterated his dismay over the government's 'perplexing' HIV/AIDS policy that has recently been ditched for a more conventional approach, high crime rates and the serious allegations hanging over national police commissioner Jackie Selebi.

'It is difficult to image a police force being galvanized to fight criminals with a chief seemingly so flawed,' Tutu said of Selebi, who is also head of Interpol and is being investigated for alleged links to the criminal underworld.

South Africa's foreign policy also came for a tongue-lashing from the outspoken 76-year-old cleric, often described as the moral guardian of the Rainbow Nation.

South Africa's vote in January against a UN resolution on Myanmar and its refusal to outright condemn human rights abuses in Zimbabwe 'all seems such a betrayal of our ideals and our past,' Tutu said.

Instead of addressing social problems in one of the most unequal societies in the world the government preferred to concentrate on the 'monumental red herring' of name changing.

Town, streets, bridges are being renamed in an attempt to rid them of associations with colonialism and apartheid but the new names, many of which commemorate ANC heroes, are often seen as too partisan.

The government has also made noises about changing the names of the national sports teams - Bafana Bafana (football), Proteas (cricket side) and Springboks (rugby) - for something more 'suitable.'