The African National Congress always takes the blame for the problems of rival parties, ANC KwaZulu-Natal chairman Dr Zweli Mkhize said on Thursday.

"Some parties are also tempted to use the media to project the ANC as being intolerant. When there are problems and tensions between parties, we need to work together to resolve them," he said.

He was reacting to comments, apparently made by the Inkatha Freedom Party, that the ANC hated its leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi.

"This is an unusual comment and it's not true. The ANC does not hate anyone," Mkhize said.

"The only difference is that we don't agree with the IFP's policies and we believe they are not suitable to take the country forward".

He said some political parties had been blaming the ANC when things within their own party did not go their way.

Responding to a demand by the Congress of the People that the ANC reimburse them for a branch meeting that was disrupted recently, allegedly by ANC members, Mkhize said the party exercised tolerance.

Cope claimed that people wearing Jacob Zuma t-shirts arrived in a Durban metro van at a hall where a Cope meeting was taking place. They allegedly entered the hall, sang ANC songs and threw chairs around. The meeting was subsequently cancelled.

Cope's KwaZulu-Natal provincial secretary Phillip Mhlongo demanded the party be refunded for booking the hall, hiring electronic equipment and for the plane ticket of leader Terror Lekota to and from Durban.

Said Mkhize: "People are invited to Cope meetings on the assumption that they are all supporting the same views and, when things don't go right, they start blaming the ANC... We don't believe in violence... We want to question parties who use the ANC's name when issues arise."

A confident Mkhize said either way it did not matter because: "Cope will lose this [2009 general] election. We are quite confident they will lose."