Posted on 01/24/2009 6:08:19 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
SOUTH AFRICA’S ruling African National Congress (ANC) has veered sharply to the left and will go into elections, expected to be held in April, with a manifesto largely dictated by the country’s Communist party, according to senior party officials.
Under Jacob Zuma, its new leader, it has quietly adopted a radical platform of social policies which the business community claim are unaffordable.
The ANC already promises a free allowance of water and electricity to all and has introduced the largest welfare state ever seen in a developing country....
Under the influence of its firebrand new secretary-general, Gwede Mantashe, a former leader of the mine-workers’ union and chairman of the South African Communist party, it is adopting policies and rhetoric based on left-wing states such as Cuba and Venezuela. ....
Under his influence the ANC is expected to propose, in its as yet unpublished manifesto, the introduction of universal health insurance, free education, the extension of child allowances to all children up to the age of 18, new maternity grants, wage subsidies, an old age savings scheme, subsidised housing for farm workers and military veterans, free food handouts to all poor families, an expanded public housing programme and the “transformation” of the private sector through the “development of cooperative financial institutions”. ....
Mantashe stands for the absolute supremacy of party over government. When black judges failed to find for the ANC in an important court case, he railed against them as “counter-revolutionaries” and “apartheid apologists”. He has already announced that after the election “we [the party] will sack any ministers who do not perform”.
The ANC programme calls for the assertion of party control over the central bank, with its interest rates set in line with social needs rather than for the control of inflation, as in the past.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
It's the difference between:
- on the edge of the cliff- gone over the cliff
The U.S. Democrat Party.
Touche`! - FR Post of the Day.
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