The South African president, Nelson Mandela, has announced a last-miniute postponement of the registration of voters in four provinces The Free State, Kwazulu-Natal, Eastern and Western Cape due to a lack of trained personnel.

Mr Mandela said the exercise needed exceptional effort and had been pushed back by one week.

The leader of the opposition National Party Marthinus van Schalkwyk said it showed that the country was being governed by what he called a bunch of incompetent people.

The government wants a new bar-code indentity card for all registered voters but white opposition leaders say this will exclude many whites who do not have the new indentity cards.

The Independent Electoral Commission will, however, register voters in the remaining five provinces this weekend for elections due by July next year