The ANC is keeping mum on its funding sources for the election campaign, but party insiders involved in fundraising say its election effort is heavily subsidised by the ruling parties in Libya, Angola, China and India.
A source involved in fundraising said the party began actively fund-raising in these countries for its election coffers before Polokwane. The ANC's initial election budget for the 2009 election totalled about R100-million, excluding travel and logistical arrangements, which cost the most, a source said.
He said the party has also received funds from oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, one of Africa's most notorious dictatorships.
The ANC's funding strategy is based on donations by individuals, but the big money comes from ruling parties elsewhere.
ANC president Jacob Zuma and ANC delegations have been travelling, ostensibly to build historical relationships with other ruling parties but also to raise funds, insiders say.
He visited Angola in March last year for the celebration of the battle of Cuito Cuanavale with a heavyweight ANC delegation.
In June last year, in New Delhi, he signed a memorandum of understanding between the ANC and the Indian National Congress. This was followed by a visit to China where he met Hu Jintao, Chinese president and general secretary of the Communist Party of China.
In October last year he attended Equatorial Guinea's independence day celebrations as a guest of dictator Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who has ruled the country since 1979, despite flawed elections.
"The ANC have never asked for money from foreign governments; it is always from one ruling party to another," said an ANC insider.
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