African National Congress

The African National Congress is a political party and the governing party in South Africa. It was founded as a political pressure group in 1910 in the city of Bloemfontein?, and counted poet and author [Sol Plaatje]? among its founder members.

By the 1950s, the ANC came under increasing pressure from the ruling apartheid government and it was eventually banned from political activity. In 1960 the leader of the ANC, [Albert Luthuli]?, won the Nobel Peace Prize, a feat that would be repeated in 1993 by Nelson Mandela. The 1960s also saw a radical splinter movement emerging that eventually became the [Pan-Africanist Congress]? (PAC).

With apartheid ever more evidently untenable, the ANC and PAC were unbanned by president F.W. de Klerk in February 1990. in 1994, the ANC won a landslide victory in the country's first non-racial elections and the party has ruled the country in a series of voluntary coalitions with the [New National Party]? and the [Inkatha Freedom Party]?, under presidents Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki. It also rules eight of the country's nine provinces.

The ANC can be described as the parliamentary wing of a tripartite alliance between itself, the [Conference of South African Trade Unions]? (Cosatu) and the [South African Communist Party]?. By 2001, this alliance was evidently showing signs of strain as the ANC moved to more right-wing economic policies than its alliance partners were prepared to acommodate.