With a R5-million convention under their belt, organisers of the so-called Shikota movement are now gearing up for the December founding conference of their as-yet-unnamed political party, former Gauteng premier Mbhazima Shilowa said on Sunday.

Shilowa, one of the leading figures in the movement, was addressing a media briefing in the wake of Saturday's event in Sandton, which he said was attended by 6300 registered delegates.

He said the movement's steering committee had not yet decided on a name for the new party.

"There is a meeting of the steering committee immediately after this press conference wherein hopefully we will be able to receive what the provinces would have said.

"We will then hopefully finalise that over the next two to three days. We'll take the decision today, but obviously we'll need to be able to look at how do you finalise it."

Shilowa said the committee would also agree on Sunday on a formal core national interim leadership group, plus equivalent structures for the provinces.

"Linked to that is our commitment to try to ensure that it is not just only us who were in the ANC who are in this interim structures. It has to encompass new faces, new blood, new thinking."

He said the committee would look at setting up a preparatory committee for the party's founding conference in Bloemfontein in December, and the compilation of pre-conference discussion documents on its ethics and values.

"We do not underestimate the work that lies ahead," he said.

"There's a difference between taking a decision to form a political party, forming a political party, ensuring it has got policies, with elections coming, an electoral platform, and to win the elections. So we understand.

"But we're starting on the basis that says we want to become the next government, in provinces and nationally."

However he declined to predict what that majority would be.

Asked whether his relatively prominent role in the convention was an indication that he would be the leader of the new party, Shilowa said those who had already publicly identified themselves with the movement had not done so to stake a claim.

"It was simply that we were ready and available," he said.

He said the costs of Saturday's convention, held in the Sandton Convention Centre, was still being calculated.

But with the costs of the venue, food and accommodation, "you're talking around the region of R5-million if not more".

Asked whether the movement had secured that money, or if it was already in overdraft, he said: "It will be covered."

Sapa