South Africa's Tutu attacks ANC government before poll

South African Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu delivers remarks after being presented with the J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding Award in Washington November 21, 2008.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu launched a scathing attack on South Africa's ruling African National Congress, reminding its leaders they are not God, in an interview aired before this month's general election.

The ANC is still respected for its long fight against white-minority rule but critics say it has betrayed the struggle since coming to power in 1994.

The party is expected to win the election on April 22 but supporters are becoming increasingly disillusioned by corruption scandals.

"Let me tell this ANC government what I told the Afrikaner ... government: 'You may have power now but you are not God'," Tutu said in an interview broadcast by South Africa's eTV late Tuesday and Wednesday.

"Remember you are not God. And one day you will get your come-uppance."

The breakaway Congress of the People (COPE) could reduce the ANC's dominance in parliament in the face of growing public anger over graft, poor services, poverty and crime.

ANC leader Jacob Zuma, expected to become South Africa's president, is awaiting word on whether corruption charges that have dogged him for years will be dropped.

Tutu chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the body set up after the end of apartheid to examine human rights abuses.

South Africa's refusal to give Tibet's spiritual leader Dalai Lama a visa to attend a peace conference of Nobel laureates, including Tutu, was widely criticized. Critics accused the government of caving in to pressure from China, which it denied.

Tutu said it was an example of the moral degeneration in South Africa, which holds itself up as a model of democracy and human rights.

"I had thought, you know, that as an old man I was going to be sitting on the sidelines and watching our young people helping this new democracy flourish and grow ...," he said.

(Reporting by Michael Georgy; editing by Andrew Dobbie)