Mr Lekota says the party will emerge as "a force to be reckoned with".
Mr Lekota says the party will emerge as "a force to be reckoned with".
Mr Lekota says the party will emerge as "a force to be reckoned with".
Mr Lekota says the party will emerge as "a force to be reckoned with".

ANC faction names Lekota leader


  • English
  • Arabic

South Africa's former defence minister Mosiuoa "Terror" Lekota was named president of a breakaway faction of the ruling ANC at the official launch of the new party today. "The people have decided to elect Mosiuoa Lekota as our leader," announced a Congress of the People (Cope) official at a press conference in Bloemfontein in central South Africa. The former premier of the country's richest province Gauteng, Mbhazima Shilowa, was named deputy along with businesswoman Linda Odendaal.

The party, made up of disgruntled former members of the African National Congress (ANC) is positioning itself as a modern party of the future that is racially inclusive as discontent with the ANC has grown in past years. "What kind of country do you want to live in the future?" Mr Lekota said in his first address as president, adding that South Africa was facing a leadership crisis. "This country was running short, was suffering from a crisis of leadership, and at this conference in the interactions of our delegates and our fellow citizens we hear about concerns for the moral decay in our body politic."

The former ANC leaders jumped ship after the party forced former President Thabo Mbeki to resign after months of discontent over the path the party was taking under the leadership of controversial party chief Jacob Zuma. Bloemfontein in the Free State province is also the birthplace of the ANC. "Today it becomes the birthplace of our country's first modern political party. This is the Congress of the People which we launch today here in Bloemfontein," Mr Lekota said.

"We, the Congress of the People, will hold hands with all South Africans to defend the values that define us as a nation," said Mr Lekota, saying the party would emerge as "a force to be reckoned with". "We must not rest on our laurels." He outlined many of the parties policies including a dramatic turnaround in affirmative action policies which he said "will not be based on race". "Ours shall be a truly non-racial party which shall provide a home and voice to all South Africans irrespective of race, class or gender."

* AFP

Company Profile

Name: Thndr
Started: 2019
Co-founders: Ahmad Hammouda and Seif Amr
Sector: FinTech
Headquarters: Egypt
UAE base: Hub71, Abu Dhabi
Current number of staff: More than 150
Funds raised: $22 million

ICC Women's T20 World Cup Asia Qualifier 2025, Thailand

UAE fixtures
May 9, v Malaysia
May 10, v Qatar
May 13, v Malaysia
May 15, v Qatar
May 18 and 19, semi-finals
May 20, final

Jetour T1 specs

Engine: 2-litre turbocharged

Power: 254hp

Torque: 390Nm

Price: From Dh126,000

Available: Now

The Two Popes

Director: Fernando Meirelles

Stars: Anthony Hopkins, Jonathan Pryce 

Four out of five stars

Dhadak

Director: Shashank Khaitan

Starring: Janhvi Kapoor, Ishaan Khattar, Ashutosh Rana

Stars: 3

Company%C2%A0profile
%3Cp%3ECompany%3A%20Zywa%3Cbr%3EStarted%3A%202021%3Cbr%3EFounders%3A%20Nuha%20Hashem%20and%20Alok%20Kumar%3Cbr%3EBased%3A%20UAE%3Cbr%3EIndustry%3A%20FinTech%3Cbr%3EFunding%20size%3A%20%243m%3Cbr%3ECompany%20valuation%3A%20%2430m%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Sole survivors
  • Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
  • George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
  • Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
  • Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.