South Africa's newest political party, the Congress ofthe People (COPE) insists it will offer a serious challenge to the rulingAfrican National Congress in elections in a few weeks (April 22). At thisstage, though, it's the ANC's controversial leader, Jacob Zuma, who looks likelyto become the next president of Africa's largest economy. COPE consists of formerANC members unhappy with Zuma's leadership of the ruling party. COPE initially saidit was targeting 51 percent of the vote, but independent surveys say it standsto receive only between six and 10 percent.
"Simply put," says COPE'schief of policy, Smuts Ngonyama, "the surveys are wrong. We are going toreceive far more than six percent?. We are going to surprise a lot of people."
He acknowledged that COPEfaces a "very big challenge" to prevent the ANC, which got 70 percent of votescast in the 2004 elections, from gaining a two-thirds majority in parliament.
"But we believe that SouthAfricans are the?. doctors of the situation in our country. They are the oneswho are going to punish those who seek to undermine our democracy," Ngonyamasaid.
Ngonyama is the former headof former president Thabo Mbeki's office and a close friend. Last year the ANC effectivelydismissed Mbeki after a judge suggested that the former president hadinstigated corruption investigations into Zuma.
Ngonyama asserted thatdemocracy in South Africa could "collapse" if the ANC is afforded another termin office. Voters, he maintained, would choose COPE because of the "guts" ofthe party's officials who had been "brave" enough to leave the ANC and to "tellthe public what is wrong with the ANC, and that we don't want this country tobe another Zimbabwe?."
One of COPE's mainallegations against the ANC is that the ruling party has become inherentlycorrupt. Zuma, in particular, is alleged to have received bribes from a Frenchweapons firm in exchange for favors with regard to an arms deal, and there area slew of other graft allegations against top ANC members that oppositionparties say aren't being investigated.
However, one of COPE'sleading members is himself a convicted fraudster.
In 1999, the anti-apartheidcleric Allan Boesak, who at the time was chairman of the Western Cape branch ofthe ANC, was convicted of misappropriating thousands of dollars of donor funds meantfor development in his province.
He was imprisoned in 2000,but released after having served just over a year of his three-year sentence. In2005, then president Mbeki issued a full presidential pardon to Boesak, whosecriminal record was duly expunged from the record.
Ngonyama said, "With regardsto the funds that [Boesak] (corruptly) received, those funds were used for thestruggle (against apartheid)."
Ngonyama did, however,acknowledge that Boesak had not been able to "account in detail" for his use ofthe donor funds and that he had thus been found guilty of fraud.
"But the most important thingis that he was pardoned; those criminal charges were expunged and those chargesare no more on him," Ngonyama added, saying, "That's why we decided to use him;the law allows us to do that."
Ngonyama further argued that thecorruption case against Zuma was "different" and "more serious" than that ofBoesak, because a judge had jailed the ANC leader's former financial advisorfor making corrupt payments to Zuma ? thus directly implicating the likelyfuture president of South Africa in graft.
"On top of it all," said theCOPE official, "the ANC has gone out of its way to ensure that Jacob Zuma isnever tried in a court of law, unlike Boesak, who has been jailed and now deservesa second chance."
Ngonyama stressed that although the charges against Zuma had been dismissed, it would make Zuma and the ANCmuch, much bigger in the eyes of the public if he stood down and allowedsomeone else to run for president" because the "dark cloud hovering over" Zumawas damaging the integrity of the country.
According to some analysts,COPE's hopes of causing an upset at the forthcoming polls were severely damagedwhen former president Nelson Mandela recently appeared at a public rally in theEastern Cape Province alongside Zuma. They see this as Mandela's endorsement ofZuma, and a significant boost to the ANC leader's campaign.
COPE members, as well as manySouth Africans, were deeply concerned when ANC officials arrived at the elderlyMandela's home, led him to a helicopter and flew him to appear alongside Zumaat the political gathering.
Mandela had made it clearthat he had retired from politics and his foundation, which controls his publicaffairs, had said beforehand that Mandela was too frail to attend publicfunctions.