Same flavour, new wrapper

Johannesburg - ANC breakaway movement leader Mbhazima Shilowa insisted that his party represented the future, but seemed to offer only variations on current ANC policy.

"We are not targeting disgruntled Thabo Mbeki supporters. We are targeting all South Africans who believe in what we stand for."

But what the party will stand for is still hard to gauge. Shilowa listed general terms including "policies that safeguard democracy; issues of morality, of integration" and "sorting out the challenges of poverty, unemployment and so forth".

But he was hard-pressed to provide more details on how Cope would differ substantially from the ANC.

"We will have to look not so much at what differentiates us, but in terms of what is it that we are going to be able to do to improve on those policies," he said, referring to the policies of the Thabo Mbeki government.

"Remember some of us would have been in government. I can't support a policy today then say I don't support it tomorrow. But I can say look, I want to improve on this policy."

But he was still adamant that the ANC "represented the past, we represent the present and the future".

Shilowa said the party would lean neither to the right or the left. "We see our party taking its rightful place to represent all South Africans - black and white, rich and poor - along the lines of how other social democratic societies are able to work ensuring that the policies always lean to the majority who are poor."

In answer to a list of questions, he said bringing back the death penalty had not been discussed, but the party would probably be against it.

He also said Cope would support affirmative action and broad-based black economic empowerment. "We'll just have to look at ensuring it's implemented slightly differently to the extent that is needed."

His answer to crime was improved criminal investigation, technology and more police manpower. "Because the problem is not that there are no crimes committed in other countries," he said. "It's the ability to be able to arrest those people because they have better investigations."

He was mum on the question of an official leader for the party, which he established with former defence minister Mosiuoa Lekota, but said it was possible someone "completely new" would be decided on at the launch conference.