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Dutch traders landed at the southern tip of modern day South Africa in 1652 and established a stopover point on the spice route between the Netherlands and the East, founding the city of Cape Town. After the British seized the Cape of Good Hope area in 1806, many of the Dutch settlers (the Boers) trekked north to found their own republics.

The discovery of diamonds (1867) and gold (1886) spurred wealth and immigration and intensified the subjugation of the native inhabitants. The Boers resisted British encroachments but were defeated in the Boer War (1899-1902); however, the British and the Afrikaners, as the Boers became known, ruled together under the Union of South Africa. In 1948, the National Party was voted into power and instituted a policy of apartheid - the separate development of the races. The first multi-racial elections in 1994 brought an end to apartheid and ushered in black majority rule.

South Africa is struggling with high crime, xenophobic violence, and an economic downturn. In the midst of all this, a well-known stalwart of the governing African National Congress Mosiuoa Lekota who  resigned as South Africa's defense minister  in September  after leaders of the party forced one of its own. President Thabo Mbeki, to leave office, took steps  to break with the party and start another, arguing that the A.N.C. had turned its back on democracy.

"It seems we are serving today divorce papers," he said.

Mr. Lekota forcefully criticized the stewardship of the party's leader - and the country's likely next president - Jacob Zuma, who has been dogged by corruption charges and was recently cleared of rape charges  But he was coy about naming others who might join his cause.

"We don't need prominent people," he said. "Why would we need prominent people? The population of this country must decide its future."

An A.N.C. split could reconfigure the nation's political landscape before elections next year. Since 1994, South African politics have been dominated by the A.N.C., the party of Nelson Mandela and the organization that led the freedom struggle. Unlike Mr. Mbeki, who fought apartheid from exile, Mr. Lekota was a member of the United Democratic Front, which orchestrated the swirling, violent protests of the 1980s inside South Africa that led to the release from prison of Mr. Mandela. In that era, Mr. Lekota was known by his soccer nickname, Terror.

Speaking at a news conference broadcast live on television, Mr. Lekota said some sort of convention for the politically disgruntled would be convened in November to determine whether to start a new party. "I'm quite sure there are other comrades in the A.N.C. who are unhappy," he said.

There is little doubt of that. The party has been badly fractured for more than a year. In a contentious A.N.C. conference last December, Mr. Zuma unseated Mr. Mbeki for the party presidency. In the months since, the nation had two competing centers for power: the party led by the president-in-waiting, Mr. Zuma, and a lame duck government headed by Mr. Mbeki. The awkward struggle seemingly ended with Mr. Mbeki's resignation and the ascension of an interim president, Kgalema Motlanthe.

But many South Africans objected to the manner in which Mr. Mbeki was deposed. Mr. Lekota was one of several cabinet ministers to resign. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Nobel laureate, said in interviews that if the A.N.C.'s rift went unhealed, he would be "sufficiently unhappy not to vote."

Some supporters of Mr. Zuma have vowed to "kill" if the criminal corruption case against him keeps him from the presidency. Other supporters have donned Zuma T-shirts with tribal slogans. "I cannot think that the majority of the people in this country will vote for a party that has abandoned" the rule of law, Mr. Lekota said.

Some commentators find the revolt ironic. Sipho Seepe, president of the South African Institute of Race Relations and a harsh critic of Mr. Mbeki, said it was under Mr. Mbeki and Mr. Lekota that A.N.C. members became fearful of expressing criticism, even when they disagreed with what they saw as Mr. Mbeki's deeply flawed leadership on AIDS treatment, or his cozying up to President Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Mr. Seepe said Mr. Lekota's was a power game and an effort to test the waters for a new party that would be likely to have little public support.

"What we have here is a spoiled brat who cannot come to terms with losing power," he said. "People like him have been rejected by their own party."

There were also questions about how significant a challenge a breakaway party could mount. Mr. Zuma's supporters in the trade union movement and some political analysts depicted Mr. Lekota's broadside as sour grapes from a man who lost power along with Mr. Mbeki.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions, a crucial party ally with the power of almost two million members behind it, chided Mr. Lekota in a statement for failing to accept that the party had voted in what it called "a fair, transparent and democratic process" for Mr. Zuma.

In June, a  special permit for Zimbabwean migrant was announced by the South African government. The outgoing home affairs minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula had announced in April 2009 that Zimbabwean migrants from there would be eligible for a special permit allowing them to stay legally in South Africa for six months. As of Late June, it has been  put on hold pending a review of the decision by cabinet.