The Congress of the People is not planning to be an opposition formation but rather an alternative political platform, the SABC reported its co-founder Mbhazima Shilowa as saying on Saturday.

Addressing Cope's provincial congress in Germiston, Shilowa said their meetings in all provinces were aimed at creating a policy platform through which their election campaign would emerge.

"Those of us who are leaders of political parties must know that democracy means you get given a five-year contract.

"Hopefully you utilise it effectively but at the end of that period you have got no inherent right to assume that people will elect you," said Shilowa.

"They have the right, based on evaluation, to decide you did not earn that right to lead, that right to govern and that therefore they are going to take their vote elsewhere," he said.

Sapa