Johannesburg - Former anti-apartheid activist Mamphela Ramphele said the ANC treated voters like children, The Times reported on Wednesday.
“Come election time, it will appeal to you to vote for the party of Mandela, [it will] appeal to you to vote for the only liberation movement [and] appeal to you not to vote for the DA because they will take you back to apartheid,” she was quoted as saying.
“It's almost treating you like children and, unfortunately, we don't have civic education - where people understand that it is not possible to be taken back to apartheid. If you are poor and uneducated, you wonder if it is not possible that it can happen again.”
Ramphele, who is chairwoman of Gold Fields, was speaking at the University of Cape Town's School of Business on Tuesday on the “Marikana Fallout”.
According to the newspaper, Ramphele also spoke about the mining and grape farm strikes in Western Cape, and the role of labour unions.
She said that, unless the unions evolved, they were committing “suicide”.
The strikes leading up to Marikana showed workers' increased lack of faith in many trade unions.
Ramphele said South Africa needed to reinvent itself after the Marikana tragedy, but warned of “opportunists who are riding on the back of Marikana and agricultural labour problems”.
Sapa