STELLENBOSCH, South Africa, Dec 16 (AFP) - South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) started a crucial five-day national conference Monday to devise strategies for the post apartheid struggle against poverty and HIV/AIDS.
Thousands of delegates, most wearing yellow, black and green T-shirts with the ANC's colours, danced and sang old struggle songs before the meeting started in the picturesque student town northeast of Cape Town.
They cheered loudly when South African President Thabo Mbeki arrived and opened the conference with the national anthem, Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrica (God bless Africa) with their fists raised in the air.
The meeting will pave the way for the next 50 years by electing a new leadership and defining its social and economic policies, some of which have been contentious issues within party structures.
Mbeki, regarded as certain to win re-election as ANC president, will address the 4,500 delegates at the opening session later Monday.
If the ANC remains in power after the next elections in 2004 -- opinion polls say this is almost certain -- Mbeki's re-election at the helm of the ANC will mean he will serve a second five-year term as head of state, after which he must step down.
The conference takes place eight years after the party, which led the anti-apartheid struggle, came to power in the first democratic elections in 1994. In 1999 it won again with a 66 percent majority.
"There is no doubt that we will be re-elected. However there are critical questions we have to answer... such as to what extent are we accelerating change because there is an urgency," ANC deputy secretary-general Thenjiwe Mtintso told reporters in the university town of Stellenbosch northeast of Capetown.
The 51st ANC conference takes place at a time when the party's traditional, poor black support base is becoming increasingly disillusioned and impatient, demanding better services amid a stuttering national economy.
South Africa's unemployment rate is around 30 percent, it has one of the highest HIV infections in the world and about half of its population lives in poverty, earning less than 600 rand (66 dollars) per year.
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