JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP):

The head of a breakaway faction of South Africa's ruling party told thousands of cheering supporters yesterday that the African National Congress (ANC) had turned the country's post-apartheid hope into despair with corrupt, incompetent and divisive policies.

Some 4,000 delegates attended the splinter faction's first national meeting in a show of strength for the first real challenge to the ANC since South Africa's multiracial elections in 1994.

Tainted by corruption

An increasing number of South Africans facing massive unemployment and poverty feel the leaders of the ANC are tainted by corruption and do not have their interests at heart.

The as-yet-unnamed new party, which is to be launched next month, promises to highlight growing disenchantment that analysts say could undermine the ANC's huge support base.

However, given the ANC's still-overwhelming popularity, it is unlikely to stop the ruling party winning next year's general elections. The party that wins the elections chooses the president from its ranks.

"Shall we keep quiet and do nothing as we see the open betrayal of everything people saw as their hope for their future?" Former Defense Minister Mosiuoa Lekota asked to a resounding "No!" from the scores of people waving South African flags.

"We are now faced with the reality that the hope (of the past) has turned into the despair of the present," he said.

Quit to protest

Lekota quit the government in September to protest the ouster of former President Thabo Mbeki. Mbeki was forced by the ANC to resign before the end of his second term after a judge found that he may have interfered in the prosecution of ANC president Jacob Zuma.

Zuma, who defeated Mbeki in a bitter race for the party leadership last year, is likely to be the country's next president. Most of those attending yesterday's meetings are Mbeki supporters, but the gathering does not have his support.