What is the History of the African National Congress?

History of African National Congress

The African National Congress (ANC) is a political party in the Republic of South Africa. Nelson Mandela has been the ruling party in South Africa since he was been elected in the 1994 election and has won every election since, Cyril Ramaphosa, the outgoing president of South Africa, has been the leader of the ANC since December 18, 2017.

Founded by John Langlibel Dube as the South African Native National Congress (SNNC) on January 8, 1912, in Blufontaine, its primary mission was to bring all Africans as one person and to protect their rights and freedoms.

National Congress main goal is to retain the right to vote for the Colloids (mixed races) and black Africans in the Cape Province. In 1923 it was renamed the ANC. The struggle to end apartheid began in the 1940s, in addition to South Africa’s South African policy of racial segregation and discrimination. The ANC was banned by the White South African government from 1960 to 1990; for these three decades, it operated underground and outside the South African region. The ban was lifted in 1990 and ANC President Nelson Mandela was elected head of South Africa’s first multivariate government in 1994.

EARLY DECADE

In the late 1920s, ANC leaders split over the issue of cooperation with the Communist Party (founded in 1921), and then the victory of the Conservatives troubled the party in the 1930s. However, in the 1940s, the ANC was revived under young leaders who pressed for a more radical stand against the partition in South Africa. Founded in 1944, the ANC Youth League attracted Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo, and Mandela. After 1948, the ANC began to sponsor non-violent protests, strikes, boycotts, and marches against the racist policies of the National Party government that came to power in 1952. The membership of the party grew rapidly. The 1952 Defense Campaign ended with a campaign against pass laws (blacks needed a pass to indicate employment status) and other government policies. In the process, ANC leaders became symptoms of police harassment: in 1956 many of its leaders were arrested and charged with treason (1956–59).

Transfer tower terrorism

In 1960 and 1959, the Pan-African Congress (PAC) split from the ANC and staged mass protests against the pass laws, during which 69 unarmed protesters were killed by police. At this point, the ANC and the PAC either banned or outlawed the National Party. The ANC, which denied legal rights to political change, first plundered and later organized guerrilla warfare outside South Africa. In 1961, as part of the campaign against apartheid, Mandela was led by the ANC military organization Umakhanto v. Siswe (“Spear of the Nation”). Mandela and other ANC leaders were sentenced to life in prison in 1964 (Rivonia trial). Although the ANC’s guerrilla war campaign was ineffective due to strict South African internal security measures, the remaining ANC cadres led by Tambo activated the organization in Tanzania and Zambia. Following the Soweto uprising in 1976, the ANC began to roam South Africa in the late 1970s, killing more than 600 people, many of them children and police. By the 1980s, the ANC’s banned black, green, and gold tricolor flags began to appear within South Africa, and in the 1980s the country was plunged into a virtual civil war.

POWER INCREASE

F.W. De Klerk’s rule lifted the ban on the ANC in 1990, allowing its leaders to be released from prison or to return to South Africa to pursue peaceful political activities. One of the most important ANC leaders, Nelson Mandela, became the president of Oliver Tambo in 1991. Mandela led the ANC in talks with the government (1992–93) on the transition to a government elected by universal suffrage. The party came to power in the country’s first election in April 1994, winning more than 60 percent of the seats in the new National Assembly. After the National Party withdrew from the government in 1996, the ANC formed an alliance with its former rival, Ingatha. Freedom Party led by Mangosuthu Butalasi. Mandela resigned as ANC president in 1997, and in June 1999 his successor, Tabo

Mbeki, became the second black president of South Africa. The party celebrated its 90th anniversary in 2002 and dominated South African politics.

INTERNAL PARTITION

Signs of discontent within the ANC began to appear at the party’s 2007 national convention, where the next president of the ANC, and most likely the next president of the country, was to be elected. Although the South African constitution barred Mbeki from serving a third term as president, his third term as party president will have a significant impact on the country’s next president-elect in 2009. . His attempt to lead the party was challenged. Former Vice President Jacob Zuma fired in 2005 over corruption allegations; the following year, Zuma was tried for a crime unrelated to rape. Despite repeated false accusations by his followers that he was politically motivated – Zuma was a popular figure in the ANC, one of the most controversial leadership struggles in the party’s history, and was elected party president in December 2007.

The enmity between the two camps continued into the following year. In September 2008, Zuma’s ANC asked Embeco to resign as South African president, following a High Court judge’s allegation that Zuma’s trial on corruption charges had led to high – level political interference. Mbeki reluctantly did so. Mbeki’s resignation angered the ANC membership, and several top officials resigned in protest of their government positions.

Zuma’s close ties with the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions are another tension within the party. Although both organizations were long-term ANC partners, there was growing concern among many ANC members that the leadership of the Zuma Group was having a significant impact on the ANC.

The ANC has proven to be very good at removing disagreements. High-ranking members and followers of Mbaki Makhsima Shilova, Malluki George, and Mosiova Likota severed ties with the ANC and formed a new party, the Congress of People (COPE). Despite the challenge of the COPE and other parties, the ANC won the 2009 general election, with 66 percent of its national rivals ahead of its rivals. The party retained control of all provinces except the Western Cape, which won the Democratic Alliance (DA).

With the conclusion of the ANC’s National Convention in 2012, there were clear signs of discontent within the party as corruption led to the defamation of Zuma and the ANC – led government, as well as dissatisfaction with the country’s general progress. However, Zuma still has the support of the majority. At the last minute, he was challenged as the current president of the party, the current vice president of the party Kalima Motulante, but Zuma was defeated.

The ANC secured its seat in the ruling party for five years in the 2014 election, winning 62 percent of the vote in the national election. It remained the dominant party at the provincial level in all provinces except the Western Cape. One such party, the Economic Freedom Fighters, was ousted from the ANC in 2012 by Julius Malema, a former leader of the ANC Youth League.

2019 ELECTIONS

The 2019 elections were held on May 8. On the national stage, this was the party’s worst performance ever, a continuation of dissatisfaction with the ANC-led government. Although the ANC still won a majority of the vote – about 58 percent – during Ramaphosa’s five-year term as president, it was the party’s lowest victory since coming to power in 1994. At the provincial level, the party was competent. Take control of eight of the nine provinces it already holds, and the Western Cape shifts back to the DA.

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