AIDS and poverty major concerns for government

Analysts are concerned that HIV/AIDS and poverty are among the main issues "fracturing" South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC).

Despite its revised policies "to better meet the country's development needs", including providing antiretroviral drugs to HIV-positive residents, the party was urged to stop "blaming decades of apartheid for any failure to sort out the country's many problems".

Reuters quoted Sipho Seepe, academic director of Henley Management College, as saying: "The ANC's challenge is to move above appeals to the past to cover the failures of the moment. Apartheid cannot be our alibi for failure forever."

As it enters its second decade in power, challenges to the ANC include the HIV/AIDS pandemic, with an estimated one in nine people infected; an unemployment rate of about 28 percent; one of the world's highest crime rates; and a growing gap between rich and poor.