The former leader of South Africa's richest province said on Wednesday he had resigned from the ruling ANC and will head a national convention of dissidents threatening to form a breakaway party.

Former Gauteng premier Mbhazima Shilowa told a media briefing he would help organise a national convention that could launch the party in two weeks.

"The convention is scheduled to take place on 2 November at a venue still to be determined," Shilowa said, saying the meeting would be on the theme: "In defence of our democracy."

Shilowa is one of several influential members of the African National Congress (ANC) who quit office after the party ousted Thabo Mbeki from the presidency last month.

Mbeki's fall, just months before the end of his mandate, laid bare deep splits within the movement that led the fight against apartheid and dominates South African political life.

Lekota suspended

Shilowa, a one-time member of the ANC executive council, joins a dissident movement begun one week ago by former defence minister Mosiuoa Lekota.

The ANC suspended Lekota on Monday after he indicated a splinter group could be formed to challenge the ruling party in elections next year.

"I have decided to resign my membership of the ANC... and to lend my support to the (Lekota) initiative," Shilowa told journalists.

Lekota resigned as defence minister last month, accusing the ANC of abandoning its democratic ideals with the sacking of Mbeki, who was locked in a long-running power struggle with party boss Jacob Zuma.

Zuma unseated Mbeki as party leader last December, in a stunning upset for the man who succeeded democracy icon Nelson Mandela as South Africa's second president since the end of apartheid in 1994.

Disappointing

Zuma called Shilowa's resignation "disappointing".

"It is just disappointing that people who have been in the leadership, who have been leading people within the ANC, are not able to show leadership when they come across difficulties," he told journalists.

Shilowa was once a top official in the country's main labour federation, the Conference of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), which supports Zuma. But after his announcement, the group quickly branded Shilowa an opportunist.

"Shilowa and his ilk will not succeed. Parties can only be built on the foundation of principles and not on naked opportunism," it said in a statement.

Although the effort to form a new party is gaining momentum, analysts warn that a breakaway would face an uphill battle to challenge the ANC's dominance with elections just months away.

"The new splinter party, if it is eventually formed, is unlikely to give the ANC sleepless nights. They must be prepared to become another voice with few seats in parliament," political analyst Steven Friedman of the Centre for Democracy told a business gathering.

AFP