By DPA,
Johannesburg : The breakaway African National Congress (ANC) members have formally decided on the name of their new party as the South African Democratic Congress (SADC), to be formally floated Dec 16, one of the party’s founders, Mbhazima Shilowa, confirmed Monday.
The new party, which is born out of a split in the ANC between supporters of party leader Jacob Zuma and ousted former state president Thabo Mbeki, will register Monday in next year’s general elections, Shilowa said in a radio interview.
South Africans go to the polls sometime between April and June to elect a new National Assembly, which in turn elects the president.
The emergence of the new party, which includes among its ranks several former ANC stalwarts, has rattled the ANC, although the party of Nelson Mandela is expected to still sweep the polls.
Over 4,500 delegates attended a weekend convention in Johannesburg’s business district to lay down the founding principles of the new party, which is targeting middle class voters with a call for a moral regeneration.
The main largest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, has been unable to shake off its image of being the party of white liberals, a tiny minority of voters.