For decades, activists in the ANC were jailed and exiled as terrorists. Now its top brass are titans of South African politics and business, in lives far removed from ordinary members.
The party, which celebrates its 100th anniversary Sunday, has produced four presidents since taking power in the first all-race elections in 1994. Three spent at least a decade in prison, and the fourth lived in exile for 28 years. "In many people's eyes we were still terrorists and former prisoners with no experience of running the country," Housing Minister Tokyo Sexwale told AFP, remembering the African National Congress's transition from a banned liberation movement to a ruling party.
"We never saw ourselves as terrorists, we were satisfied in our minds that we were freedom fighters and we were supported in this by the entire world," said Mac Maharaj, the current presidential spokesman, who like Sexwale was jailed on Robben Island alongside Nelson Mandela.
"When Mandela was released, I think that was the biggest shock to" white South Africa, he told AFP.
"They expected a person with horns, and when they heard the language that he was speaking, when they saw his attitude, they couldn't understand that 'hey this is a person like you and me'."
Many of South Africa's government leaders were persecuted under the apartheid-era Terrorism Act, which forbade any activities to overthrow the white-minority regime from 1948 to 1994.
Top ANC leaders were also deemed international terrorists -- the United States only removed Mandela from its terrorist watch list in 2008.
Some, like Sexwale, raised alarm bells after receiving military training in the Soviet Union.
But once in power, the party chose economic liberalism, creating a new generation of "black economic power" that has changed the face of the continent's biggest economy.
South Africa's black middle class counts between two and three million people, and several ANC stalwarts have emerged as business giants.
Four years after becoming premier of Gauteng province, which includes Johannesburg, Sexwale quit government and founded Mvelaphanda Holding, a company with assets in mining, media, healthcare, construction and technology. The millionaire, who hosted South Africa's version of "The Apprentice" TV show, returned to government to become minister in 2009. He's perhaps the most successful of ANC leaders who have used their political clout to build massive economic empires, along with Cyril Ramaphosa, who has interests in everything from mining to the local McDonald's franchise.
Ramaphosa founded South Africa's most powerful trade union federation Cosatu and was a top negotiator during peace talks with the apartheid regime.
His Shanduka Group sold a 25-percent stake at two billion rands ($250 million, 190 million euro) to the Chinese Investment Corporation in December.
Blurred lines between the worlds of politics and business have sparked repeated scandals -- and stoked discontent among many ordinary South Africans who have yet to reap economic gains from their political freedom.
About 39 percent of South Africans currently live under the poverty line of 419 rands ($52, 40 euros) per month. That number has hardly budged since 1994. "Today's South Africa looks very different from the one we left behind in 1994," Trevor Manuel, head of the National Planning Commission, said recently. "Yet for many poor South Africans, there is still much that looks the same."
A growing concern is that membership in the ruling party is seen as a gateway, or even a prerequisite to business success. "People ask, do you have to be a member of the ruling party to be successful? It seems to be the obvious answer," said political analyst Joe Mavuso. "Out of all the African leaders who made it in business, all belong to the ruling party." afp
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