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Congress of the People (COPE)

The election of Zuma as ANC leader, supported aggressively by the ANC's alliance partners, was followed by a systematic purge of Mbeki's supporters within the Cabinet, the Parliament, the civil services, the provinces and party structures. The forced resignation of Mbeki in September 2008 led to ultimate victory for Zuma's faction within the ANC, all but guaranteeing Zuma's rise to be the next President of the Republic.

However, the ANC's "recall and redeployment" of Mbeki as SAG president and the continuing purges of his supporters precipitated the emergence of the break-away opposition party made up primarily of former ANC stalwarts, the Congress of the People (COPE). The ANC saw in COPE what it did not see in other opposition parties -- a potential threat to their near exclusive support of the majority black population. The prospect of losing voter support to a break-away group of former comrades (that they believe is directly related to and supported by Mbeki) galvanized the ANC's election campaign machinery like nothing else could.

The ANC's well-funded, nation-wide, door to door campaign aimed to convince its core grassroots support that COPE had neither the vision, support base nor the resources to rule or to help them like the ANC could. With a campaign budget in excess of Rand 300,000,000 (US $ 30,000,000), the ANC was able to blanket the country with posters, provide poor communities with food hampers and other support, produced television commercials and other campaign media. After only four months in the game, COPE's lack of resources, internal leadership squabbles and a party platform that was characterized as "ANC-lite," could not compete with the ANC for the hearts and minds of South Africans. Nevertheless, for a new party, COPE did energize the campaign and was seen by many, especially young and middle-class black voters, as potentially a viable alternative to the ANC. As election results were reported, COPE was the third largest party in South Africa with 7.42 percent of the vote.

Some pundits and political analysts initially and optimistically projected that Lekota's COPE could win 50 percent of the vote or more -- drawing key leaders from the ANC all along the way. In subsequent months, however, those projections continued to fall. Many political commentators saw COPE getting between 25 and 50 Qpolitical commentators see COPE getting between 25 and 50 seats (or roughly 6 to 15 percent of the vote). The reasons for the decreased expectations were varied and included party factionalism, poor planning, and a lack of funding.

There were signs of a power struggle between Lekota and Mvumelwana "Mvume" Dandala. Lekota's ego was bruised following the party's decision to appoint Dandala as the presidential candidate. Factions within the party were strong between those who supported Lekota and those who supported former Gauteng premier Mbhazima Shilowa. The manifestation of such a power struggle was confusion and poor planning. For example, no other political party had campaign posters featuring two different leaders as COPE does with Lekota and Dandala both on party signs across the country.

Funding was a issue. COPE's leadership has been consistent in saying that the party could win Eastern Cape and Limpopo, but admits that "if we had money we could compete with anyone, but funding has not come fast enough." Funding may have been even harder to come by given the recent global economic crisis, with many South African businesses seeking to stay close to the known quantity of the ANC. COPE already had an impact in this election -- drawing long-time ANC leaders away from their spiritual and ideological home.