Johannesburg  - "A terrible beauty is being born," the leader of South Africa's new opposition Congress of the People (COPE), Mosiuoa Lekota, said on opening the party's inaugural conference in the southern city of Bloemfontein at the weekend.

Whether in quoting Irish poet William Butler Yeats' "Easter 1916", which reflects on the human toll of political heroism, Lekota was considering his future as an opposition leader in South Africa, or merely toying with his nickname ("Terror," awarded for his prowess on the football field) is uncertain.

What is clear, however, is that the African National Congress, which considers itself the rightful heir to power in South Africa for having delivered the country from apartheid in 1994, is terrified by COPE.

COPE was founded in October by a a group of ANC members, led by former ANC chairman Lekota, who quit the party after the ANC dumped Thabo Mbeki as president in September.

As a black-led party headed by former anti-apartheid veterans - Lekota spent time in Nelson Mandela's Robben Island prison - COPE is seen as the first party to pose a real challenge to the hegemonic ANC.

ANC leader Jacob Zuma and the leaders of the allied trade union federation COSATU and ANC Youth League have responded with venom to the defection of ANC members to COPE, calling them "traitors," "dogs," and "snakes."

Ordinary members of the ANC have also been riled up at the democratic daring of their erstwhile comrades. Baying ANC youths tried to thwart COPE's first meetings before party leaders bowed to pressure to call off their own "dogs."

When name-calling and intimidation fell short of the mark, the ANC turned to the courts to protest the party's name.

The word "Congress" in Congress of the People was too evocative of the historic 1955 Kliptown Congress, at which the ANC's constitution was drafted, the ANC complained. The court found against the ANC - and the terrible beauty was christened.

By COPE's formal launch on Tuesday ANC leader Jacob Zuma was trying a new tactic: Humility.

"We have learnt from the mistakes of the past 15 years, especially the manner in which we may have, to some degree, neglected the people's movement in our focus on governance," he told an ANC rally in Bloemfontein, a stone's throw away from the COPE launch.

His remarks were an acknowledgement of the high levels of discontent among ordinary South Africans, millions of whom continue to eke out a miserable existence in tin shacks, while the politically connected grow fabulously rich.

"We must defend our hard-won democracy and our country's constitution," Zuma said, in response to criticism that he has refused to submit himself to the scrutiny of the law by scrutiny of evading trial for suspected corruption.

His remarks follow the ANC's shock drubbing in municipal by-elections in Western Cape province earlier this month. The party contested 15 wards of 27 councillor positions but took only three, against 10 for COPE members running as independents.

While COPE is given little hope of repeating the win in national elections slated for March, it is credited with the power to take between 10 and 20 per cent of votes, shrinking the ANC's more-than-two-thirds parliamentary majority.

But COPE first has to convince voters its leaders are more than a bunch of sore losers, who backed the wrong horse in the Mbeki-Zuma tussle for power.

Many COPE members, including Lekota, are also tainted by their silence at Mbeki's governance failures - like his cossetting of strongman Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe and his footdragging on HIV/AIDS.

On Tuesday, COPE listed as its priorities defending the constitution, providing "credible leadership" and ending the practise of the ruling party deploying members to the country's top posts, he said.

Lekota also vowed, if elected, to end affirmative action "on the basis of race."

On other issues, such as tackling poverty and unemployment, COPE has begged to agree with the ANC. (dpa)