ANC rebels win name change ruling

Cope claims to have registered some 430,000 members

A breakaway group of South Africa's governing party has won the right to use the name Congress of the People.

The High Court ruling comes ahead of the new party's official launch and a day after it took a third of seats in the Western Cape by-elections.

The ruling African National Congress opposed their name, saying it refers to an important ANC event in 1955 when the Freedom Charter was signed.

The ANC says it was disappointed by the judgement and intends to appeal.

"The ANC does not believe that this name should be appropriated for the exclusive use of any political party, particularly one that had no involvement in that historic event," the ruling party said in a statement.

The Congress of the People (Cope) was created this year when ANC members split over the ousting of ex-President Thabo Mbeki.

'Bullying tactic'

Cope is the splinter group's third proposed name.

ALL IN A NAME 1: South African National Congress, challenged by ANC as too similar to its name 2: South African Democratic Congress, already registered by another party 3: Congress of the People, refers to an event when the ANC's Freedom Charter was signed How the ANC came to split

Its first choice - South African National Congress - was challenged by the ANC, saying it was too similar to its own name.

Their second choice - South African Democratic Congress - was already registered as a party.

Cope said this challenge was "nothing but a bullying tactic by the ruling to frustrate a normal democratic process", the South African Press Association reports.

The ANC has dominated politics since the fall of apartheid in 1994, but correspondents say Cope has shaken the country's political landscape.

In its first electoral test this week, the ANC dissidents won 10 of 27 wards in the Western Cape - the province where the ANC has always been least popular.

The Cope members had to stand as independent candidates because of the challenge to the name of the party, which is to be officially launched on Tuesday.

Political analyst Fredrick Van Zyl Slabbert told the BBC that the ANC had under-estimated the extent to which there has been dissatisfaction within the ANC at grassroots level.

But he added that it was not clear how Cope would raise the vast sums of money it needs to contest next year's national elections.