X-Nico

4 unusual facts about Congress of the People


Devant Maharaj

In November 2007 Devant Maharaj unsuccessfully contested the Couva South constituency for the newly formed Congress of the People led by Winston Dookeran in the General Elections.

Mkhuseli Jack

In 2009, Mkhuseli Jack was named as one of a group of powerful Eastern Cape businesspeople that emerged as bankrollers of the breakaway political party, the Congress of the People (COPE), which formally split from the ANC on the 1.

Rose Moss

In 2008, Lekota became a prime mover of a new political party in South Africa, the Congress of the People, COPE.

Thomas Nkobi

He was one of the main volunteers who traveled from village to village collecting demands of the African population that were incorporated into the ANC Freedom Charter; he attended the 1955 Congress of the People in Kliptown that drew up the Freedom Charter as a delegate from Alexandra.


Esther Barsel

A group of 156 black and white activists - including Chief Albert Lutuli, Oliver Tambo, Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu - were put in the dock after a countrywide crackdown following the adoption of the Freedom Charter at the Congress of the People in Kliptown at the end of 1955.

South African presidential election, 2009

Jacob Zuma of the ruling African National Congress won the election with 277 votes (13 more than the number of seats held by the ANC), while Mvume Dandala of the Congress of the People got 47 votes.


see also