South Africa's last apartheid president FW de Klerk has blamed the ruling ANC party for the country's spiralling social and economic woes.
In a speech to business leaders late Wednesday, the 76-year-old De Klerk lambasted the wealth-redistribution policies of the ANC.
He said they would cause "social engineering in which people's prospects would once again be determined by race, rather than by individual merit and circumstances".
De Klerk hit out at what he called the Marxism-Leninism of some members of the ANC ruling alliance, which he blamed for widespread unemployment and the failure to attract investment.
South Africa is experiencing one of its worst crisis since apartheid, which De Klerk helped end, earning him a share of the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize with Nelson Mandela.
A wave of violent strikes led by miners demanding huge wage increases has rattled Africa's largest economy and highlighted the country's huge social discrepancies.
De Klerk acknowledged that some of the country's woes were inherited from apartheid, but argued that the party of President Jacob Zuma was failing to deal with them.
"The reality is that it has had to contend with enormous socio-economic backlogs inherited from the past," he said.
"By the same token, it was also unfair to blame all the problems of the present on the past," he said, adding that "the ANC was primarily responsible for the current crisis".
'ANC to blame for economy'
South Africa's last apartheid president FW de Klerk has blamed the ruling ANC party for the country's spiralling social and economic woes.
In a speech to business leaders late Wednesday, the 76-year-old De Klerk lambasted the wealth-redistribution policies of the ANC.
He said they would cause "social engineering in which people's prospects would once again be determined by race, rather than by individual merit and circumstances".
De Klerk hit out at what he called the Marxism-Leninism of some members of the ANC ruling alliance, which he blamed for widespread unemployment and the failure to attract investment.
South Africa is experiencing one of its worst crisis since apartheid, which De Klerk helped end, earning him a share of the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize with Nelson Mandela.
A wave of violent strikes led by miners demanding huge wage increases has rattled Africa's largest economy and highlighted the country's huge social discrepancies.
De Klerk acknowledged that some of the country's woes were inherited from apartheid, but argued that the party of President Jacob Zuma was failing to deal with them.
"The reality is that it has had to contend with enormous socio-economic backlogs inherited from the past," he said.
"By the same token, it was also unfair to blame all the problems of the present on the past," he said, adding that "the ANC was primarily responsible for the current crisis".
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