South African businesswoman set to threaten ANC's dominance

The idea of a political group one day emerging as a serious rival to the ultra-dominant African National Congress is a perennial topic of conversation among South Africa's political class, as the ANC has maintained a firm grip on power since the end of apartheid in 1994.

One of South Africa's most dynamic women appears set to enter politics, setting off rampant conjecture about whether she could finally help forge a viable alternative to the seemingly unshakeable African National Congress.

Something close to hysteria greeted news that the celebrated academic and liberal darling Mamphela Ramphele — a former World Bank managing director and anti-apartheid activist — has been wooing potential donors to a new party.

The idea of a political group one day emerging as a serious rival to the ultra-dominant African National Congress is a perennial topic of conversation among South Africa's political class, as the ANC has maintained a firm grip on power since the end of apartheid in 1994.

As a highly qualified black woman with a solid history of anti-apartheid struggle, including a relationship with slain Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko, Ramphele has a formidable profile in a nation obsessed with identity politics.

"She is one of the great success stories of post-apartheid South Africa," said Adam Habib from the University of Johannesburg.

After she founded the Black Consciousness movement with Biko, who was murdered in police custody in 1977, authorities banished her to a remote northern town until 1984.

A doctor and successful businesswoman, the 65-year-old Ramphele holds a commerce degree and a doctorate in social anthropology, and was the first black woman to run a South African university. Today she sits on the board of several companies.

Although she has frequently joined causes championed by the ANC, she has become increasingly outspoken about the party's rule.

Apartheid

She recently wrote a book that was critical of the country's trajectory and in interviews has called the ruling party "corrupt" and "unaccountable".

The ANC, Ramphele argues, has failed to improve the lot of impoverished blacks in what remains one of the world's most unequal nations 19 years after the end of apartheid.

"Is it possible to have a liberation movement transforming itself into a democratic governing party?" she asked in a BBC interview last year.

"There were glimpses of it during the (Nelson) Mandela administration... but the rest of the ANC, quite frankly, from the very beginning was more about taking control and... stepping into the shoes of the former coloniser."

Recently Ramphele is said to have been fund-raising in the United States, where she confessed "she is now going into politics to save the country", according to the City Press newspaper.

On Tuesday she went out of her way not to deny those reports in a statement.