The ANC's 2009 election manifesto - described by some commentators as "pro-poor" and "pro-worker" - is in fact pro-poverty and pro-unemployment, Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille said on Friday.
"If it is implemented, job opportunities will be lost; the poor will become poorer; and the poverty net will be widened," she said in her weekly online newsletter.
That was because the manifesto, unveiled last Saturday, was underpinned by the ANC's vision of a closed, crony society.
"It contains few proposals to create opportunity, which is the most effective weapon in the fight against poverty," Zille said.
Instead, the ANC's manifesto promised to concentrate more power in the hands of a so-called "developmental state".
"But, under the ANC, the state itself has become the enemy of opportunity in two ways."
Firstly, the state had been turned into a closed, patronage-based system - used to enrich a cabal within the ruling party and reward its cronies through various forms of "deployment".
Loyal ANC cadres controlled all state institutions and served the interests of a party faction rather than all the people.
The inevitable result of this downward spiral into centralisation, cronyism and corruption was the criminalisation of the state and the cannibalisation of opportunity.
"In fact, the ANC's closed, patronage-based system extends beyond the state. The ANC now deploys its cadres to business.
"These cadres ensure that they and their cronies benefit from state tenders as well as black economic empowerment deals in the private sector which they help to facilitate.
"So even in the private sector - which should be the main driver of economic growth and creator of opportunity - the principle of opportunity for all (supported by the DA) is giving way to the ANC's principle of opportunism for some," she said.
Secondly, many state institutions were dysfunctional. They were split into ANC factions and used to wage internal political battles.
Moreover, as a result of ANC policies which subordinated race to merit instead of marrying the two, state institutions were not backed by a highly efficient, highly skilled and well trained bureaucracy.
Many public servants were hand-picked by ANC cronies under the guise of affirmative action.
If the ANC was serious about making the state functional, let alone "developmental", the ruling party would abandon its policy of cadre deployment and make appointment to public service dependent on "what you know", not "who you know".
"Predictably, the ANC's manifesto makes no such pledges: that would undermine the whole basis of its closed, patronage system," Zille said.
The DA's manifesto - to be launched next month - was based on a package of carefully costed and mutually reinforcing policies that set out practical steps to attain its vision of an open, opportunity society for all.
It sought not only to alleviate poverty through an appropriate social safety net of state grants, but to reduce poverty by expanding opportunity.
"Creating opportunity is the focus of all our policies, because we believe that the only way to eradicate poverty is by expanding opportunity through sustained job-creating economic growth and a significantly improved education system," she said. - Sapa