Second major party launched in South Africa

BLOEMFONTEIN, South Africa – A splinter group of prominent African National Congress politicians launched a new party Tuesday in the first major challenge to the movement since it took power nearly 15 years ago after toppling South Africa’s apartheid government.

At dueling rallies Tuesday, the ANC drew its usual star power and crowds. But the opposition politicians gathering across town delivered enough energy and biting rhetoric to worry the nation’s long-dominant political force.

Dominated by former ANC officials – though none with the drawing power of current ANC leader Jacob Zuma or party icon Nelson Mandela – the newly formed Congress of the People, or COPE, was not expected to defeat the ANC in general elections next year.

But the ANC was clearly worried there might be enough discontent among voters for the new party to seriously cut into its large parliamentary majority.

On Tuesday, the governing party showed how seriously it takes COPE, organizing a counter rally in this university town 250 miles south of Johannesburg which the ANC considers its birthplace.

Zuma, a 66-year-old former guerrilla leader, drew thunderous cheers from some 15,000 people packed into a soccer stadium in Mangaung, the black township on the edges of Bloemfontein. He called on supporters to “defend the ANC from attempts to sow disunity and confusion in its ranks.”

“We must defend the peace, harmony and stability that was achieved in 1994,” he said. “Only the ANC can deliver true unity and prosperity in this country.”

COPE, led by former Defense Minister Mosiuoa Lekota, emerged after the ANC forced Thabo Mbeki to step down in September as the nation’s president, culminating a power struggle with Zuma. Zuma had defeated Mbeki in a bitter race for the party leadership last year.

Lekota has called the manner in which Mbeki was ousted undemocratic and questioned whether Zuma, who has struggled to shake corruption allegations, is fit for the presidency.

Lekota said Tuesday his party was formed because South Africa “was suffering from a crisis of leadership” and because of “concerns for the moral decay in our body politic.”

Most of those attending the new party’s launch were Mbeki supporters, but the group does not have his public support.

The new party has been accused of offering little more than criticism of the ANC. Still, it was won a number of victories in recent local elections, while attracting whites and unveiling a more business-friendly economic policy to woo voters nervous about Zuma’s close links to labor and the South African Communist Party.

COPE also proposes direct presidential elections to ensure the will of the people is carried out. In South Africa’s current winner-take-all elections, the party with the majority of seats in parliament names one of its members as president.