Johannesburg - The new party of breakaway African National Congress members that is generating huge excitement in South Africa in the run-up to elections has finally been given a name.

One of the party's founders, the former premier of the richest province, Gauteng, Mbhazima Shilowa, confirmed Monday that supporters of the new party attending a weekend convention had decided on South African Democratic Congress (SADC).

At one point, the founders of the SADC, which will be formally launched on December 16, was rumoured to be toying with South African National Congress or South African National Convention.

But at the last minute they opted to avoid a legal challenge from the ANC by avoiding a name that might have infringed on the 96-year- old brand.

The new party, which is born out of a split in the ANC between supporters of party leader Jacob Zuma and ousted former state president Thabo Mbeki, will register Monday in next year's general elections, Shilowa said in a radio interview.

South Africans go to the polls sometime between April and June to elect a new National Assembly, which in turn elects the president.

The emergence of the new party, which includes among its ranks several former ANC stalwarts, has rattled the ANC, although the party of Nelson Mandela is expected to still sweep the polls.

Over 4,500 delegates attended a weekend convention in Johannesburg's business district to lay down the founding principles of the new party, which is targeting middle class voters with a call for a moral regeneration.

On Sunday, Zuma, the ANC's candidate for president, lashed out at the party dubbed Shikota after Shilowa and party leader, Mosiuoa Lekota, a former ANC chairman, calling them a "wealthy" bunch of "snakes."

South Africans who have been turned off by the growing arrogance of the ANC after 14 years in power have been energized by the emergence of a party whose members can also claim the mantle of the anti-apartheid struggle.

The current largest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, has been unable to shake off its image of being the party of white liberals, a tiny minority of voters. (dpa)