The two-year-old New Vision Party on Saturday announced its merger with the Congress of the People at a press conference in Pretoria.
Congress of the People co-founder Mluleki George said on Tuesday that the fledgling opposition party’s problems are in its leadership.
Cope president Mosiuoa Lekota on Friday again denied there was a leadership tussle between himself and his first deputy Mbhazima Shilowa.
The national leadership of Cope gathered at its headquarters on Friday to tackle the problems facing the fledgling party.
Cope leaders Mosiuoa Lekota and Mbhazima Shilowa said on Thursday they did not know why their number three, Lynda Odendaal, quit this week.
Simon Grindrod — the former head of the Cope’s election campaign — seems determined to air what he believes is the party’s dirty laundry in public.
Simon Grindrod, a major figure in the Congress of the People, on Tuesday launched an attack against the party’s leadership.
Cope president Mosiuoa Lekota has embarked on a campaign to build branches for his party in preparation for the 2011 local government elections.
The party’s money troubles have partly been addressed by the fact that it will have 30 paid MPs in the National Assembly.
When it announced that about 50 ANC MPs would cross to Cope, the ANC went into panic mode.
Voters braved the cold in SA’s hotly contested fourth post-apartheid elections on Wednesday, with KwaZulu-Natal the only province to report problems.
At its birth last year, some pundits thought the Congress of the People might even draw enough support to prevent the ANC winning a majority.
ANC president Jacob Zuma emerged as the favourite politician followed by DA leader Helen Zille among people questioned in a new pre-election survey.
An election rally in honour of freedom fighter Chris Hani on Saturday was turned into a day of mudslinging by the alliance partners of the ANC.
Sources said while he pretended in public that he was over the shock, his anger is still being felt in Cope.
Cope said its former election coordinator Mlungisi Hlongwane, who returned to the ANC on Thursday, was suspected of being an ANC mole.
Veteran Cape politician Peter Marais will remain with Cope after being ”illegally” removed from the party’s provincial election list.
Cope president Mosiuoa Lekota on Tuesday suggested South Africa was heading down a similar path which led to the deterioration of Zimbabwe.
Bringing you the must-have gossip in the run-up to the ballot.
South Africa’s BEE scheme, accused of merely shifting wealth to a few businessmen, should focus on the impoverished, Mosiuoa Lekota said on Friday.
It is simply not good enough for Ngconde Balfour to bluster that he has applied his mind, and show us all his familiar middle finger.
There is no struggle among the leadership of Cope, newly appointed presidential candidate Mvume Dandala says.
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/ 27 February 2009
Luthuli House has a ”war room” tasked with gathering damaging information on the Congress of the People’s leaders in the run-up to the election.
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/ 27 February 2009
Lekota’s government history and ‘autocratic’ style cost him the nomination, write Mandy Rossouw and Mmanaledi Mataboge.
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/ 24 February 2009
Cope president Mosiuoa Lekota promised on Monday that his party would not give people top jobs because ”they were on Robben Island”.
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/ 23 February 2009
The Congress of the People formally introduced its presidential candidate, Dr Mvume Dandala, to the media on Monday.
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/ 18 February 2009
Cope leader Mosiuoa Lekota is considering a legal challenge against the safety and security minister’s decision to take away his bodyguards.
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/ 24 January 2009
The Constitution will be ”fearlessly defended” and the rule of law upheld by a Cope government, said the party’s election manifesto.
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/ 16 January 2009
The ANC and Jacob Zuma are expected to spill the beans about other corruption in the arms deal when they make representations to the NPA.
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/ 13 January 2009
Cosatu on Tuesday warned Cope president Mosiuoa Lekota that if he continued threatening the rights of the workers he would be in for a ”big surprise”.
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/ 11 January 2009
The ANC election manifesto was "long on promises and short on credibility", Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille said on Saturday.
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/ 17 December 2008
The Black Lawyers Association have expressed concern over Mosiuoa Lekota’s statement on affirmative action, labelling it a ‘threat’