A splinter group of prominent African National Congress (ANC) politicians has launched a new party 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 on 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.
PHOTO: EPA
Dominated by former ANC officials — though none with the drawing power of ANC leader Jacob Zuma or party icon Nelson Mandela — the newly formed Congress of the People (COPE) was not expected to defeat the ANC in general elections next year.
But the ANC was clearly concerned that there might be enough discontent among its supporters 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 400km 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,” he said.
COPE, led by former South African defense minister Mosiuoa Lekota, emerged after the ANC forced Thabo Mbeki to step down in September as the nation’s president.
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.
Mthethwa dismissed COPE as a group of disgruntled politicians who wanted to cling to power, but said its formation was “good for democracy.”
While the ANC rallied on a dusty soccer field, COPE was launched on Tuesday before about 5,000 enthusiastic supporters wearing yellow T-shirts emblazoned with the party logo on the green clipped lawn of the local cricket field in a more leafy part of town.
Berny Moshobane, from the northern Limpopo Province, joined the new party, saying he was expelled from the ANC for not agreeing with the party’s leadership.
“I do not want to be ruled by a leader involved in controversy,” he said.
“Yes, this new party is like a continuation of the ANC, but we are more experienced now, more enlightened,” he said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but