South Africa: New Party Inflicts Defeat on Ruling ANC

12 December 2008
allAfrica.com
By John Allen

Cape Town — The ruling African National Congress (ANC) has suffered a defeat in the courts in its bid to prevent a breakaway party from appropriating the statement of principles which inspired its struggle against apartheid for 40 years.

On Friday the High Court in Pretoria rejected an application by the ANC to stop ANC leaders who have left the party from launching a new party next week under the name "Congress of the People" (COPE) - the name under which the ANC and its allies in the "Congress Movement" met in 1955 and adopted the "Freedom Charter," a declaration of principles which generations of Congress activists looked to as their lodestar as they struggled for a new society.

When former defence minister and ANC chairman Mosiuoa "Terror" Lekota broke with the party after the firing of President Thabo Mbeki in September, he accused the ANC of betraying the Freedom Charter.

One instance he cited was the charter's statement that "All shall be equal before the law!" In a letter to the party, Lekota referred to reports that ANC leaders wanted to find a "political solution" to corruption charges against Jacob Zuma, Mbeki's successor as party leader and the ANC's candidate for president after elections next year.

"The leadership has taken a direct and unadulterated departure from the Freedom Charter..." Lekota wrote. "What happened to 'There shall be equality before the law?'. Or are we now to have political solutions to every citizen's criminal case?"

The break initiated by Lekota and those who have joined him is the biggest split in the party since the late 1950s, when the Pan Africanist Congress broke away from the ANC - in part over white and communist influence in the Congress alliance in campaigns such as the one which produced the Freedom Charter.

The new party is set to launch next Tuesday, South Africa's Day of Reconciliation. But the ANC is not taking its defeat lying down. The party said on Friday it intended to appeal the decision.

"The Congress of the People... was a watershed moment in the history of our struggle, and should stand as a monument to the determination of the South African people to be free," said party spokeswoman Jessie Duarte. "The ANC does not believe that this name should be appropriated for the exclusive use of any political party, particularly one that had no involvement in that historic event."

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