In KwaZulu-Natal, the home province of ANC President Jacob Zuma, members of the breakaway faction announced on Sunday that they would be attending the national convention.

Former ANC Youth League deputy chairman in KZN Siphelele Kinqa and erstwhile South African Communist Party provincial executive committee member Nhlanhla Buthelezi said about 50 delegates would attend the convention.

They complained about lack of discipline within the ANC as the reason for leaving the party. Lekota continued with his recruitment campaign as he told his supporters in the Northern Cape at the weekend that the convention would forge ahead despite recent events of threats by ANC supporters.

He also took a swipe at the ANC leadership of trying to protect Zuma by preventing him to go to court to face corruption charges.

In Limpopo, Azapo claimed that 58 members of the ruling party joined them on Sunday.

Azapo secretary-general Strike Thokoane said party leader Mosibudi Mangena, the former minister of science and technology, had welcomed the former ANC members of the Jane Furse branch.

"Even in Grahamstown we have a number of ANC cadres who have defected to join Azapo. Some of the people are saying they are coming back home," said Thokoane.

United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa said his party had also benefited - as hundreds of disgruntled ANC members had crossed the floor and joined his organisation in KZN.

Welcoming the 350 new members in Durban at the weekend Holomisa said former ANC branch chairmen and secretaries had seen the light.

"In hindsight we can safely say that after Polokwane, the politics in this country will never be the same. Indeed who would have thought that today we would be witnessing the split in the ruling party, even though their leadership was still recently fond of saying the ANC would rule this country until Jesus returns? If that is the case, then we are not far from that prophetic date.

"They are already unsure of winning several provinces in the next election," said Holomisa.

As the ruling party was trying to contain the departure of its supporters, Ramaphosa - in an interview with Independent Newspapers published on Sunday - said members who were leaving were making a mistake.

He said of Lekota and Shilowa: "They seem to have embarked on an irrevocable road now to form their own party. They appear to be gaining momentum, but it is a false dawn."

Ramaphosa said he had spent seven "uncomfortable" years in the ANC during former President Thabo Mbeki's tenure.

Although he, current ANC treasurer Mathews Phosa and NEC member Tokyo Sexwale, were accused of plotting to topple Mbeki in 2001, he had remained in the party.

"Nobody (but Cosatu and the SACP) ever came to our support and the matter remained undiscussed for seven years. But we never left the organisation," said Ramaphosa.

Meanwhile, Sapa reports that ANC Youth League Julius Malema, who was speaking at the league's 64th anniversary in Witbank, launched an attack on dissidents, describing them as prophets of doom and "political imbeciles."

"Those who stand on dark corners and proclaim that the ANC has lost its moral compass and has abandoned the Freedom Charter are merely spreading lies to advance their narrow, self-serving political agendas.

"We must not be hoodwinked into believing lies and half-truths the prophets of doom are spreading".

He said the recent campaigning by Lekota and Mluleki George was the most "idiotic" political performance the country had ever seen.

"What makes their dramatic performance more amazing is the shallowness of their approach based on the belief that the masses will believe them when they claim that the ANC has lost its soul post-Polokwane," Malema told hundreds of supporters. - The Pretoria News.