The African National Congress ( ANC ) is South Africa's governing political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions ( COSATU ) and the South African Communist Party ( SACP ), since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994.

The ANC deems itself as a force of national liberation in the post-apartheid era ; it officially defines its agenda as the National Democratic Revolution.

In South Africa the African National Congress ( ANC ) abandoned its partial socialist allegiances after taking power, and followed a standard neoliberal route.

The formerly dominant New National Party, which both introduced and ended apartheid through its predecessor the National Party, disbanded in 2005 to merge with the ANC.

After the 2009 elections, the ANC lost its two-thirds majority in the national legislature which had allowed it to unilaterally alter the constitution.

South Africa held its first multi-racial elections in 1994, leaving the newly-elected African National Congress ( ANC ) government the daunting task of trying to restore order to an economy harmed by sanctions, while also integrating the previously-disadvantaged segment of the population into it.

When the ANC announced the election of its National Executive Committee on 21 December 2007, Mandela placed first with 2845 votes.

The ANC drew its strength from western and southern provinces, while the UPP found some support among Bemba-speakers in the copperbelt and northern provinces.

While black members of the SACP were encouraged to join the ANC and seek leadership positions within that organization, many of its white leading members formed the Congress of Democrats which in turn allied itself with the African National Congress and other ' non-racial ' congresses in the Congress Alliance.

On the other hand, it seemed uncertain about its relationship with the government under the African National Congress and seemed unable to decide whether it was in a political alliance with the ANC or in opposition.

In 2006, it was renamed again to its current name, OR Tambo International Airport, for the ANC politician Oliver Tambo.

Morocco won their first title in the 1976 ANC held in Ethiopia and Ghana took its third championship in 1978, becoming the first nation to win three titles.

A long-time anti-apartheid activist ( from 1969 ), his lobbying of the ANC in 1987 contributed to it renouncing homophobia and making its first public commitment to lesbian and gay human rights.

Politically, it has been dominated by the ANC throughout its post-apartheid history.

Africanist critics claim Lutuli was peripherialized in Natal and the Transvaal ANC Provincial branch and its Communist Party ( CPSA officially dissolved 1950 but secretly reconstituted 1953 as SACP ) allies took advantage of this situation.

After reading the document and realising the ANC, despite its numerical superiority, had been subordinated to one vote in a five member multiracial and trade union " Congress Alliance ", Lutuli rejected the Charter but then later accepted it partly to counter the more radical Africanist wing whom he likened to black nazis.

The PAC posed a serious challenge to the ANC until its military wing was destroyed at Itumbi camp, Chunya, Tanzania in March 1980.

These protests were to begin on 31 March 1960, but the rival Pan-Africanist Congress ( PAC ) decided to pre-empt the ANC by launching its own campaign ten days earlier, on 21 March, because they believed that the ANC could not win the campaign.

On 4 February 1996, two years after the ANC came to power, the SABC reorganised its three TV channels, so as to be more representative of different language groups.

It lasted less than a decade before its federal council voted to dissolve the party on 9 April 2005, following a decision the previous year to merge with the ANC.

The party's mission statement stresses the need for Christian values, non-racial democracy, and government inducements for personal self-reliance, while the 2004 manifesto attacked the ANC for, among other things, its alleged softness on crime, nepotism, and neglect of South African infrastructure.

Nevertheless, it was under his leadership, albeit after having been very cannily lobbied, and in spite of warnings from his colleagues that it would lead to his downfall, that the ANC in 1942 established its Youth League.

Quickly outgrowing its start among a small group of Cape Town activists, a number of whom had political roots in the Marxist Workers Tendency of the ANC, TAC became a much more broadly based group, with chapters in many regions of the nation and a largely black and poor constituency.

Partly in response to the Sharpeville incident of 1960, individual members of the ANC found it necessary to consider violence to combat what passive protest had failed to quell.

Some ANC members were upset by the actions of the MK, and refused to accept violence as necessary for the ending of Apartheid, but these individuals became a minority as the militant leaders such as Nelson Mandela gained significant popularity.

The ANC has also gained members through the controversial floor crossing process.

ANC party members boycotted Chona's efforts and unsuccessfully challenged the constitutional change in the courts.

The Freedom Charter, having been developed by leading members of the Congress of Democrats, was adopted by the ANC leadership and has since remained the cornerstone of the ANC's programme throughout the years of repression.

However, through the Tripartite Alliance and the sitting of many SACP members on the ANC's NEC, the SACP has wielded influence from within the ANC, often serving as an ideological opposition against the presidency and socio-economic policies of Thabo Mbeki ( 1999 – 2008 ); this became most apparent with the ouster of Mbeki from the presidencies of both the party ( 2007, by vote ) and the government ( 2008, by ANC party recall ) and his eventual replacement in both offices with Jacob Zuma, who is widely seen as being more conciliatory to the ideological demands of both the SACP and COSATU.

As of 5 August, 2005, all NNP members of parliament became members of the ANC, in accordance with South African parliamentary floor crossing legislation ( a series of laws which allow politicians, elected on one party ticket, to defect to other parties ).

The apartheid regime's attack on the ANC's leadership and organizers continued with a trial known as Little Rivonia, in which other ANC members were prosecuted for sabotage.

POW, which had involved interviews with members of organisations among disadvantaged communities in the PWV area, international academics, students and staff at Wits, and even a meeting with the then-banned ANC in Lusaka, revealed that to many in the surrounding disadvantaged communities, there was a perception that Wits had not transformed itself sufficiently.

Although the IFP leadership favoured non-violence, as opposed to the ANC, which had created the Umkhonto we Sizwe, there is clear evidence that during the time that negotiations were taking place in the early 1990s, Inkatha and ANC members were at war with each other, and Self-Protection Units ( SPUs ) and Self-Defence Units ( SDUs ) were formed, respectively, as their protection forces.

This led to a virtual civil war between Zulu loyalist supporters and ANC members in KwaZulu-Natal.

Both the IFP and ANC attempted to campaign in each other's KwaZulu-Natal strongholds, and were met with resistance, sometimes violent, by members of the opposing party.

On 7 September 1992 the Ciskei Defence Force fired into a crowd ( led by Ronnie Kasrils ) of ANC members demanding the removal of Gqozo.

A number of African National Congress ( ANC ) members broke away because they objected to the substitution of the 1949 Programme of Action with the Freedom Charter adopted in 1955.

He defended members of the Pan Africanist Congress ( PAC ) and African National Congress ( ANC ), was a member of the Unity Movement throughout the Early 70's and 80's before he joined and became a leading member of the United Democratic Front and was a human rights activist throughout his life.

In October 2009, TAC issued a statement of Solidarity with Abahlali baseMjondolo condemning the attacks by ANC members on Kennedy Road informal settlement.

As head of Umkhonto we Sizwe, he was responsible for the suppression of a mutiny by dissident ANC members in detention camps, but denied any role in abuses including torture and murder.

The members of unions affiliated to the ANC through their union federation use the term comrade to refer to each other.

The full party support came after members of the national executive committee reminded party members that the ANC had fought for human rights, which included gay rights.