A South African court ruled today a breakaway faction of the African National Congress could name itself the Congress of the People (COPE) in a blow to the ruling party's bid to fend off the emerging rival.
The ANC under its new leader, Jacob Zuma, has been rocked by defections to COPE, which was founded two months ago by a group of senior leaders loyal to former South African president Thabo Mbeki. He was ousted by the ANC in September.
The battle is the first real challenge to the ruling party's 14-year stranglehold on power and could lead to the biggest reshaping of the political landscape since the end of the apartheid era.
The ANC had asked Pretoria High Court to prevent the new party from using its current name. The Congress of the People also refers to a 1955 political summit that laid the foundations of the anti-apartheid movement and the current constitution.
"The people of South Africa are beginning to see . . . a new beginning, a new agenda, a new hope for the country," Mbhazima Shilowa, a former provincial premier and one of COPE's founders, told the South African Press Association after the ruling.
The decision by the Pretoria High Court came just two days before COPE supporters were due to meet in Bloemfontein to choose a leader and set out the party's policies and strategy for general elections, which are expected in March 2009.
The new party has not yet formally endorsed a programme, but it has hinted strongly it will adopt centrist, pro-business policies similar to those pursued by Mr Mbeki during his nine years in office.
Investors praised his government for refusing to abandon the fiscal restraint that many economists credit for nearly a decade of growth in Africa's richest economy.
Reuters