Breakaway faction could herald shift in power in S. Africa

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JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- In a potentially seismic shift in South African politics, a breakaway faction of the African National Congress has decided to form a new political party that could threaten the ANC's monopoly on power for the first time since the apartheid era.At a convention this weekend, more than 6,000 delegates approved the plan to create a new party. They cheered and danced as speakers denounced the ANC's leaders for "abusing their power" and "hijacking" the liberation movement for their own personal interests.Many delegates had endured long overnight bus trips from remote corners of South Africa to come to Johannesburg for the national convention.Analysts say the new party is unlikely to defeat the ANC in the next election, due in the first half of next year. But if it captures 15 percent to 20 percent of the vote, while other opposition groups retain their usual total of about 30 percent, the new party could seriously weaken the ANC and create a new era of competition in South African politics, the analysts say. Leaders of the new party were jubilant at the enthusiastic turnout at the weekend convention. "We are on a march which is really unstoppable," said Mbhazima Shilowa, a former provincial premier who helped found the new party. He called it "an epoch-making convention, a history-making convention."The breakaway faction, which does not yet have a name, represents a well-financed and well-organized challenge to the ANC. It spent the equivalent of at least $500,000 to hold the weekend meeting at a convention hall in a wealthy suburb of Johannesburg, and it mobilized support with websites, Facebook pages and cellphone text messages.The new party could become the first broad-based centrist party with a chance to beat the ANC nationally. The other opposition parties are perceived as having narrower ethnic or ideological foundations, making it difficult for them to appeal to the majority. The ANC is still seen as the party of Nelson Mandela and other heroes of the anti-apartheid struggle, and until now it has gone almost unchallenged.The split in the ANC reached a climax in September when president Thabo Mbeki was forced to resign after heavy pressure from supporters of his rival, ANC leader Jacob Zuma, who is likely to become president of South Africa after the next election.The followers of the new party are angry at Zuma for winning control of the ANC and pushing out many of Mbeki's loyalists. Their speeches to the convention were dominated by calls for equality before the law -- a reference to the corruption allegations against Zuma, his acquittal on a rape charge, and the efforts of his allies to dismantle an elite police unit that brought evidence against him.Zuma's supporters, who first tried to ignore or play down the new party, are now fighting back furiously against the splinter group, which has emerged as the first major threat to the ANC's power since the end of apartheid in 1994."When the political parties that represent the lighter races say the split in the ANC is good for democracy, they actually mean it is good because it restores some of the power they lost in 1994," Vusi Mavimbela, a long-time ANC member and former head of the National Intelligence Agency, wrote in a column in a Johannesburg newspaper yesterday this week."Then they can proceed to play the power of coalitions, of minorities, to effectively checkmate the political party of revolution and preserve historical injustice."Aubrey Matshiqi, a political analyst in Johannesburg, said the ANC's strategists are considering an early election call to disrupt the new party before it can get organized. He said the breakaway group would only need to win 15 percent or 20 percent of the vote to make a huge impact on the political landscape."It would be a vote of non-confidence in the ANC, sending a signal that the voters are willing to change the party in power. It would seriously weaken the ANC and they would have to negotiate with the opposition."Some of Zuma's most vociferous supporters have threatened violence against the breakaway group, while others have allegedly prevented the group from booking hotel rooms for its meetings. "I'm seriously worried about the danger of violence if they don't lower the political temperature," Matshiqi said in an interview.(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)