Johannesburg  - South Africa was bracing for a tense Reconciliation Day in the southern city of Bloemfontein as the ruling African National Congress and the opposition Congress of the People (COPE) prepared to go head to head with rival rallies.

At the end of apartheid in South Africa in 1994, December 16 was set aside as a day on which to foster reconciliation between the country's various racial groups. Prior to that, it commemorated a key Afrikaner military victory over the Zulu nation in 1838.

The day has been chosen by South Africa's new political party COPE to unveil its party leader and election manifesto at the end of a three-day inaugural congress, when the new leader will address a rally of thousands of delegates and supporters in a cricket stadium.

Bloemfontein, capital of Free State province, is also where the ANC was founded nearly 100 years ago, in 1912.

In an attempt to upstage COPE, the ANC has planned a rival rally at the local soccer stadium a stone's throw away, at which ANC leader Jacob Zuma will be attempting to woo a bigger crowd than COPE.

COPE was founded by a group of former ANC members, who quit the party after the ANC dumped Thabo Mbeki as president in September. Party founders, former ANC chairman Mosiuoa Lekota and former premier of Gauteng province Mbhazima Shilowa have both been tipped for the leadership.

The launch of COPE, a party that like the ANC is mainly black and is led by former anti-apartheid veterans, is considered the first real challenge to the hegemony of the ANC.

While given little hope of defeating the party of Nelson Mandela in elections due to take place by end March next year, COPE threatens to dent the party's more-than-two-thirds majority in parliament.

Some South Africans, who balked in the past at voting against the ANC because it gave the country its freedom, say they would consider voting for COPE.

The proximity of Tuesday's rallies has raised fears of skirmishes. Tensions have been running high between supporters of the two parties in recent months, with ANC members trying several times to break up COPE rallies.

If elected, COPE says it would reform the electoral system so that presidents, provincial premiers and mayors are directly elected by the people, not chosen by the ruling party.

COPE also promises to clamp down on corruption, improve public services and step up the fight against crime by reviving an elite crime-fighting unit that the ANC dissolved for political reasons.

The party has been fortified by success in a series of municipal by-elections recently in Western Cape province.

COPE candidates took 10 out of 27 councillor posts, against three for the ANC, which was barred from contesting 12 wards because of delays in registering its candidates.

The result is not indicative of COPE's standing nationwide, however: the ANC's support has always been soft in Western Cape. (dpa)