African National Congress

The African National Congress (ANC) is the Republic of South Africa's governing social democratic political party. It has been the ruling party of post-apartheid South Africa on the national level since 1994, including the election of Nelson Mandela as president from 1994-1999. In the 2004 general election the ANC won 69.7% of the votes, in the 2009 general election it won 65.9% of the votes, and in 2014 it won 62.15% of the votes.

The ANC defines itself as a "disciplined force of the left", and it has been supported by the Tripartite Alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party (SACP), since the establishment of a non-racial democracy in April 1994.

Members founded the organisation as the South African Native National Congress (SANNC) on 8 January 1912 at the Waaihoek Wesleyan Church in Bloemfontein to work for the rights of the black South African population. John Dube, its first president, and poet and author Sol Plaatje were among its founding members. The organisation became the ANC in 1923 and formed a military wing, the Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation) in 1961.