Opposition parties have proved themselves very vocal in criticising the ANC. But they're not very good at taking criticism themselves.
They have reacted to criticism by accusing the ANC of being dictatorial, of suppressing opposition views, and of being intolerant of a free press.
The National Party and the Democratic Party have clearly never suffered at the hands of a repressive and intolerant state.
Judging by the words used by these parties, one would have thought that the ANC had banned opposition parties and thrown their leaders in jail; or rounded up its critics and detained them without trial; or set up covert hit-squads to assassinate opposition leaders; or closed down troublesome newspapers and arrested journalists.
That is, after all, how the National Party responded to political opposition.
But no, the only thing the ANC has done to earn such abusive labels is to criticise these opposition parties for their lack of commitment to democratic transformation.
It is unfortunate that these parties cannot differentiate between honest criticism of their policies and an 'attack' on their fundamental rights.
The National Party and Democratic Party seem to still be hankering after an era when they could sit together in the old apartheid Parliament and take turns slandering the liberation movement, while the banned ANC had no means of reply.
Fortunately, those days are over. South Africa is now a democracy, and all organisations and individuals have a constitutional right to have their say the ANC included.
When the ANC exercises that right, the National Party says it will not tolerate "being lectured to by autocratic, centralist and dictatorial institutions such as the ANC who preach democracy, but then in the same breath try to silence the opposition".
How, we must ask, has the ANC sought to silence the opposition?
In 1923, the ANC was the first organisation to call for the adoption of a Bill of Rights in South Africa. Two decades later the ANC leadership adopted a full and detailed Bill of Rights which included the "Right of freedom of the press".
In 1955, the ANC's Freedom Charter declared that "The law shall guarantee to all their right to speak, to organise, to meet together, to publish, to preach, to worship and to educate their children".
The achievement of these fundamental human rights for all South Africans has been at the centre of the ANC's mission since its formation. Many thousands of ANC cadres have sacrificed their lives in pursuit of these fundamental rights.
The sacrifices of these cadres and the monumental efforts of the masses of South Africans were realised with the adoption of the new Constitution in 1996. It contained within it the very human rights which we had so long fought for.
How then, we must ask again, has the ANC sought to silence the opposition?
Certainly not through its efforts to have freedom of the press and the freedom to receive or impart information contained in the Constitution.
Nor can the ANC be accused of seeking to silence opposition through its demonstrative belief in the supremacy of the Constitution; or through its respect for the Constitutional Court; or for its support for the establishment of a Human Rights Commission, a Public Protector and a Commission on Gender Equality.
The ANC has sought to silence opposition, it appears, by criticising them, by calling into question their sincerity and their commitment to the people of this country.
If the NP and DP regard this as intolerant and repressive, then they clearly have no stomach for democracy and the freedoms which it grants to all South Africans even members of the ANC.
The ANC will make no apology for exercising its rights under the Constitution. It will make no apology for speaking out stridently where it considers that those who upheld the old apartheid order have every intention of maintaining the vestiges of that unjust order. The ANC will make no apology for responding to criticism which it deems unjustified or malicious.
Nor will the ANC apologise for its criticism of certain elements within the media.
The ANC has every right to raise concern where it considers the media to have strayed from balanced and accurate reporting. It has every right to question the ownership patterns in the media, or the racial and gender composition of the senior editorial and management echolons of the media.
If the media consider such criticisms to be repressive, then they have a very one-sided view of freedom of expression.
It has been said that the ANC cannot tolerate criticism. That is not true. Where the criticism is valid, the ANC takes such criticism to heart. But where it is neither valid nor constructive and where it is plainly malicious the ANC reserves every right to respond in kind.
The ANC does so not to undermine democracy, but to strengthen it.
Kgalema Motlanthe
ANC Secretary General