He says such a route, if taken, will return the country to days of tension, conflict and crisis.
Writing in his weekly newsletter on the ANC Today website, Mbeki said the Democratic Alliance, Inkatha Freedom Party, African Christian Democratic Party, and unspecified others, wanted to establish a "coalition for backward change".
His letter appeared exactly two months and a day ahead of South Africa's third democratic general election, set for April 14.
"Together, such parties as the DA, the IFP and the ACDP argue for what they describe as `a flexible labour market'.
They say they stand for a `free market', with as little state regulation as possible.
"As part of this, they want the democratic state to stop providing such basic goods and services to the people as water, electricity, transport, telephones and so on.
"They agitate for wholesale privatisation of all publicly owned productive enterprises," Mbeki said.
The president said these parties were opposed to minimum wages and employment equity, as well as participation in the country's future by workers' trade unions.
"They call for a `minimal state' to deny the masses of our people, who had been impoverished and disempowered by centuries of racism and apartheid, any meaningful support by the government they will elect on April 14 this year.
"In reality what these parties - the DA, the IFP and the ACDP and others - want, is as faithful a return to the old system of unregulated capitalism as possible.
"In our situation, this is the real and undisguised meaning of such phrases as `a flexible labour market', `the free market', `a minimal state', `privatisation and deregulation', and so on".
Mbeki said what the "coalition for change" opposition parties wanted "is, in fact, a coalition for backward change, that would return our country to the days of tension, conflict and crisis". – Sapa.
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