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Recently, there has been a crisis in the ANC and the Triple-Alliance (the ruling political alliance in South Africa) over the presidential succession. These tensions revolve around specific issues: the government’s socio-economic policies, the decision-making process within the ANC, the reorganization of the ANC, as well as a generational turnover at the head of the movement. The ANC National Policy Conference, which embodies the ANC’s character as a mass movement, took place in June 2007. The author was there and sums up the discussions: although the debates had limited impact over the ANC’s socio-economic positions, democratic practices and internal divisions constrained President Thabo Mbeki’s dominant grouping in several ways.