Introduction: ANC pathways to claiming, consolidating and regenerating political power -- Aluta continua, from Polokwane to Mangaung -- The ANC and its pillars of people's power -- Power through the ballot and the brick -- Participation and power through co-operation, complicity, co-optation -- Power through elections: serial declines, but the centre holds -- Floor-crossing and entrenchment of ANC electoral supremacy -- Subjugation and demise of the (new) National Party -- Countered and cowered Congress of the People (Cope) -- State institutions as site of struggle in ANC wars -- Between centralisation and centralism: the Presidency of South Africa -- Policy, pursuit of the 'turn to the left' and the paradox of continuity -- ANC at a critical conjuncture: movement, people, elections, governance.

Includes bibliographical references and index.