Desmond Tutu, the Nobel laureate and leading light of the struggle against apartheid, has said he will not vote for the ruling African National Congress.

The Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town was expressing his deep disappointment with the divisions that have opened up in the party since the sacking of its former leader Thabo Mbeki.

If an election were to be held tomorrow, he told South Africa’s Sunday Times: “I would be sufficiently unhappy not to vote.”

He had previously warned that the cycle of revenge in the party risked turning the country into a “banana republic”, pleading: “Please let us, the elders, not go to our graves with broken hearts.”

The archbishop’s comments, coming from a man with impeccable credentials from the struggle against apartheid himself, and who is seen as the moral conscience of the nation, could hardly be a more powerful condemnation.

Meaningful opinion polls are rare in South Africa, because of the huge differences between different groups in the population and the difficulty of covering the rural poor, but support for the ANC is believed to be weakening as many fail to see material improvements in their lives.

Nonetheless with the party still enjoying widespread loyalty stemming from its role in ending apartheid, it is still expected to win the general election due next year. Analysts believe that South Africa will only become a truly competitive multi-party democracy if and when the party splits, and Mr Tutu signalled that he would welcome such a development.

“I would think you really need to have a viable opposition, one that gives the impression that it could become an alternative government,” he said. “We don’t have anything like that just now and that’s probably not such a good thing.

“Democracy flourishes where there is vigorous debate and people are actually careful of what they do, knowing that the electorate can take their revenge, that they can be kicked out of office at the next election.

“At the moment there is very little accountability. They are accountable, as it were, to themselves, and only once in a while do they really have to account to the people. It’s not healthy for everybody involved.”

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