The African National Congress launched what promises to be a bitter election campaign this week by promising to tackle the poverty and unemployment that plague South Africa 10 years after apartheid. Unveiling a sweeping election manifesto, the president, Thabo Mbeki, declared his party's intention to loosen its conservative economic policies by ramping up public spending. Poverty and joblessness would be halved by 2014 with the help of £8.7bn spent on roads, rail and air transport and telecommunications, he told 30,000 supporters in Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu-Natal province.