The ANC will lay charges against the Democratic Alliance on Tuesday after a pamphlet was distributed quoting Trevor Manuel as urging South Africans not to vote for the ANC.

"Not only does this kind of dirty campaigning go against the letter and spirit of the electoral law, but it is also deliberately designed to defame the good character of Comrade Manuel," ANC treasurer general Mathews Phosa said in Johannesburg.

"Clearly, the DA has lost any sense of wrong and right in this election."
According to the pamphlet allegedly being distributed by the DA, Manuel tells South Africans not to vote for the ANC.

The pamphlet quotes him as saying that the ANC is "unaccountable, racist, corrupt and a party that has failed to deliver to the poor."

Manuel is an ANC national executive committee member and is a minister in the presidency.

"This pamphlet is defamatory and libellous and has all the hallmarks of apartheid's CCB dirty tricks," said Phosa.

The Civil Co-operation Bureau (CCB) was a government-sponsored hit squad during the apartheid era.

The ANC had reported the matter to the Independent Electoral Commission and called on the DA to apologise to Manuel and the ANC for the pamphlet.

It would interdict the DA from further distribution of the pamphlet.
While the pamphlet did not bear any DA branding, the ANC said it had obtained an affidavit from a Moroka resident who saw a man wearing a DA T-shirt distributing the pamphlet.

Manuel, who was present at Tuesday's briefing, said a further indication that the DA was responsible for the pamphlet was a statement issued by DA spokeswoman Lindiwe Mazibuko earlier this year.

"It's [the wording of the pamphlet is] verbatim what the statement by Lindiwe Mazibuko says," said Manuel.