New South African party advancing

Dissidents meet to select leaders

JOHANNESBURG - Dissident members of the African National Congress moved forward yesterday in breaking away from South Africa's long-ruling political party, meeting here to decide on the new party's leadership, name, and symbols.

Before going into the session, one of the movement's leaders, the former premier of Gauteng Province, Mbhazima Shilowa, rejected reports that ousted President Thabo Mbeki was a silent partner in the new party.

But he said at a news conference that members of the breakaway group would always revere ANC leaders such as Mbeki and former president Nelson Mandela, and would go on singing songs about them.

"Thabo Mbeki, just like former leaders of the ANC, is not our enemy. Some if not many of the people who go with us revere Thabo Mbeki," Shilowa said.

For the group's leaders and many ANC stalwarts, leaving was a painful choice, he said. "It's like sacrificing a long life commitment to an organization."

Another of the breakaway group's organizers, Mluleki George, said ANC membership was part of the heritage of the new movement, which according to some reports will be named the South African National Congress.

"Our problem was not the ANC as an organization, but the fact that it had been hijacked," he said in a reference to the faction led by ANC President Jacob Zuma that took power at the party's national conference last December.

Many delegates to the new movement's weekend convention listed Mbeki's ousting as a motive for joining the dissident group. Other concerns were comments by Zuma supporters that they were willing to "Kill for Zuma" and their calls for a political deal to set aside fraud and corruption charges against him.

The charges were thrown out of court on a technicality in September, but their substance has never been tested before a judge. Zuma could face trial if state prosecutors are successful in appealing the dismissal of the charges.

After a glitzy national convention in Johannesburg attended by about 5,000 people, the new party is due to be officially launched Dec. 16.

Shilowa ruled out any chance that dissidents would return to the ANC, saying the goal was to win next year's elections - a hefty task given the ANC's 2004 victory with nearly 70 percent of the vote. The largest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, won just 12 percent. The ANC has dominated South African politics since the first free elections in 1994.

Shilowa said the new movement was under no illusions about the hard work ahead: "It's not a game. We are not playing. We are committed to forming a new political movement."

The biggest challenge to the ANC could be an emerging coalition between the breakaway movement and other South African opposition movements.

Zuma called the dissidents "poisonous snakes" Saturday, and "bigamists" yesterday while addressing a rally. The dissidents, he said, should have brought their dispute with the ANC to a conclusion before they approached other parties.

Zuma repeatedly attacked the breakaway group for inviting Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille to speak at the movement's convention over the weekend.

"Even before the divorce has concluded, they have now announced that they will be getting married to the Democratic Alliance and other opposition parties to form a coalition," he said.