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.
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
YELLOW SHIRTS: Many protesters were associated with pro-royalist groups that had previously supported the ouster of Paetongtarn’s father, Thaksin, in 2006 Protesters rallied on Saturday in the Thai capital to demand the resignation of court-suspended Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and in support of the armed forces following a violent border dispute with Cambodia that killed more than three dozen people and displaced more than 260,000. Gathered at Bangkok’s Victory Monument despite soaring temperatures, many sang patriotic songs and listened to speeches denouncing Paetongtarn and her father, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and voiced their backing of the country’s army, which has always retained substantial power in the Southeast Asian country. Police said there were about 2,000 protesters by mid-afternoon, although
RSS