Election posters in African National Congress (ANC) colours mounted recently in the Rosebank suburb of Johannesburg were fakes, the party said on Wednesday.

Said spokesperson Jessie Duarte: "The ANC has noted the desperate attempts by mischievous forces of darkness bent on misleading South African voters by distributing and mounting fake posters purported to be those of the ANC."

She said the latest fake posters in the black, green and gold colours of the ANC had been spotted at Jan Smuts Avenue and Oxford Road in Rosebank, suburb of Johannesburg.

The posters are written in English, isiZulu, French, German and Italian, and other spoken South African languages.

Some of the posters read: "Vote Zuma, a better life for me", "Bush and I have something in common" and "Justice is the name of my next wife".

Said Duarte: "We condemn this practice by faceless individuals which demonstrates high levels of hatred and political intolerance by those opposed to ANC policies and leadership."

"South Africa is a constitutional democracy, which guarantees freedom of association and speech, among many rights we continue to enjoy. Any abuse of these rights cannot be allowed," she said.

Duarte warned that anyone found distributing fake pamphlets and purporting they belonged to the ANC to expect the full wrath of the law if apprehended by the police or volunteers, as the incident had since been taken up with the police and the Independent Electoral Commission.

"Any attempt to sow seeds of disinformation will not succeed to mislead our people. A show of our strength and mass support will once again be seen when scores of ANC supporters attend the Siyanqoba rally at Ellis Park and Johannesburg stadiums on Sunday 19 April," she said.

She added that the rally would be the last ANC gathering to be addressed by party president Jacob Zuma before the election day on April 22.