Johannesburg – President Jacob Zuma said on Sunday he believed that South African society had split into hostile camps.

“Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other, bourgeoisie and proletariat…,” he said, referring to the Communist Party manifesto. 

He was speaking at the Young Communist League’s (YCL) national council in Kimberley, in the Northern Cape.

“You must understand the nature and character of the society in which we live. You have to know that not everything is as it seems,” said Zuma, who is also president of the African National Congress.

He told delegates the government was making progress in tackling education, health and poverty.

“In response to the hunger for education, we are establishing two brand new universities, Sol Plaatje University here in Kimberley and the University of Mpumalanga in Nelspruit.”

Zuma announced the establishment of the new facilities on 25 June, when he said the government wanted every province in the country to have an institution of higher learning.

“We are also investing further in vocational training through the establishment of 12 new Further Education and Training Colleges across the country in under serviced areas.”

He said one of the government’s success stories was the 50% reduction in mother-to-child transmission of HIV between 2008 and 2011, which had increased the life expectancy of South Africans.

SAPA