Pretoria - Deputy President Jacob Zuma says politicians and social leaders should be exemplary in "showing their morality".

South Africans everywhere were "sick (of) and fed up" with the antisocial behaviour that was destroying the country, Zuma told the launch of Tshwane's Moral Regeneration Movement at the Pilditch stadium here at the weekend.

The launch was poorly attended.

Zuma spoke of making the country more civilised.

"I am not using 'civilised' here in a Western sense, which refers to modernisation," he said.

"I use the term in the African sense which emphasises assent to values that are deemed appropriate and necessary for the survival of a given society."

"These are values that began to disappear in the last century - values of respect for life, respect for other people's property, respect for the law, respect for other people's dignity."

Mayoral spokesman William Baloyi said the idea for the movement came about when Tshwane's mayor, Smangaliso Mkhatshwa, met religious leaders to discuss ways of improving standards of living for the people of Pretoria.

"The issue that kept coming up was that of morals," Baloyi said.

"Many were saying that we need to take the issue of morality in the city very seriously."

The Moral Regeneration Movement is to focus on HIV/Aids, poverty, delivery of services, honest financial and economic practices, protection of the weak and marginalised, crime, preparing children to become "moral citizens", and violence.

Not all antisocial behaviour was "necessarily punishable by law", Zuma said.

Some of it had to do with an individual's conscience and frame of mind which the law enforcers could not police.

Mkhatshwa said his administration and the people of Tshwane were committed to ensuring that the Moral Regeneration Movement did not "end at the stadium" where it had been launched, but would lead to improvements.

"Tshwane is venturing into this as its contribution to the betterment of South African society as a whole," he said.

With acknowledgements to Cindy Zeilhofer and the Cape Times.