What is the ANC?

The ANC is the acronym for the African National Congress, the political party that has ruled South Africa since the end of Apartheid in 1994, when Nelson Mandela was elected president. Prior to the abolition of Apartheid, the ANC was a political and military resistance movement dedicated to combatting the violence and oppression of the white supremacist government that ruled South Africa and kept the black or so-called "colored population" in ghettos, living in substandard housing, unable to get good jobs or participate in politics. The all-white government, called the "National Party," (NP) officially banned the so-called "colored" population of South Africa from voting in 1969, and this complete disenfranchisement, along with brutal NP police tactics to suppress labor unrest and public dissent, as well the policy of forcibly removing black South Africans from Johannesburg to the all black shantytown of Sowetto, forced many leaders of the ANC to flee South Africa and set up their movement in the neighboring countries of Mozambique, Swaziland and Zimbabwe.

For much of the latter half of the 20th century, the African National Congress was an illegal opposition party to the all-white government. As a result of the fact that the United States and most other western nations recognized the legitimacy of the National Party Government and supported South African Apartheid, and because the ANC engaged in violent rebellion against the repressive and brutal Apartheid Government, the ANC was also listed as an international terrorist organization by the United States and its allies.

Today, and ever since 1994, however, when the South Africans held their first fully non-racially-based democratic elections, the ANC has continuously won the presidency and held a majority in the legislature (The National Assembly), by forming a governing coalition known as the Tripartite Alliance, comprised of the ANC, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party (SACP). Since Mandela left office as president in 1999, the ANC has had three more presidents: Thabo Mbeki, Kgalema Motlanthe and the current president, Jacob Zuma.