The ANC has applied for an urgent court interdict to stop the name, the SA National Convention, being used by the ANC breakaway movement, dissidents said on Friday.

"They are interdicting that we can't go ahead with the National Convention because they say we can't use their name," former Gauteng pemier Mbhazima Shilowa said on Friday.

Shilowa, former ANC chairperson Terror Lekota and former deputy defence minister Mluleki George received simultaneous sms messages informing them of this, he said at a news briefing at Sandton ahead of this weekend's convention.

However, ANC spokesperson Jessie Duarte said on Friday it was not true that the ANC wanted to stop the convention. It just objected to the name the organisers were using.

In a statement, she said: "The ANC has lodged an urgent High Court application to prevent the use of names or designations that may be confusingly similar to the name and trademark of the ANC.

"The application specifically refers to the names South Africa National Congress and/or South Africa National Convention and/or SANC."

Duarte said the application had been brought against Shilowa, Lekota and George.

"Claims that the ANC has brought an application to prevent the holding of a national convention are untrue and completely without any basis in fact," she said.

Sapa