A plot to bomb the national conference of South Africa’s governing African National Congress has been foiled, a police spokesman has said. Four white suspected right-wing extremists have been arrested, he said. President Jacob Zuma and other top officials are at the heavily-guarded conference in Mangaung, where the ANC is due to start electing its leaders. The ANC has been in power in South Africa since the end of white minority rule in 1994. Its leader will be overwhelming favourite to win elections due in 2014. Police spokesman Phuti Setati told Reuters news agency the four suspects were arrested for planning to plant a bomb in a marquee at the conference, which is being held at the University of the Free State in Mangaung. South Africa’s City Press newspaper reports that the arrests took during police raids in three of South Africa’s nine provinces – Free State, Northern Cape and Limpopo. The Federal Freedom Party (FFP), which campaigns for the self-determination of South Africa’s white Afrikaner minority, confirmed that two of those arrested were its members. However, it denied any role in the alleged plot. “We were not involved and do not associate ourselves with their actions,” FFP national secretary Francois Cloete told Reuters.
