Former president Thabo Mbeki must inform the public of his stand on the "Shikota neo liberal counter-revolutionary," the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa said on Wednesday.

"The ANC legacy needs to be defended by all those who claim to be loyal members including Mbeki.

"All loyal cadres must go out and campaign for the ANC's election victory," Numsa said in a statement.

The union said ANC members' conditions and grievances should be dealt with after the 2009 general election victory. Meanwhile members must campaign for the party.

"Anyone who wants to place conditions before executing such a task, such an act is anti-ANC and it can't be tolerated," the union said.

Numsa said that it would continue to support the ANC and will work to ensure that "it secures a further mandate to govern South Africa in next year's elections".

On the Shikota Conference, the union said that it was an assembly organised on behalf of the black and African elite "in cahoots with the white monopoly capital in South Africans to save their version of democracy."

"Their (Shikota) version of democracy means that the poor and working class have been in a perpetual crisis of poverty, unemployment with outrageous deepening inequalities," Numsa said.

The union said the Congress of the People wanted to destroy the ANC of the poor and working people and put a political party of the rich in its place.

Sapa