Desmond Tutu hints at support for new South African party rivalling ANC Earlier this year, Archbishop Tutu said that he would no longer be voting for the ANC because it since its success in banishing apartheid, it had struggled to turn around "the most unequal society in the world." "I would very sadly not be able to vote for them after the way things have gone," he wrote in a newspaper. It doesn't seem to me now that a freedom-fighting unit can easily make the transition to becoming a political party. In his latest salvo against the ANC, he said that the "miracle" brought about in South Africa by many political parties unified under former president Nelson Mandela had been squandered. "Nearly 20 years into our democracy the graciousness and magnanimity that characterised our political firmament have to a great extent been surrendered at the altar of power and wealth," he wrote. We laid the foundations upon which to restore the dignity of our poorest and most marginalised people, but we are struggling to build the house. He praised the "calibre, background, intellect and resourcefulness" of Dr Ramphele. "If Dr Ramphele formally enters the election race next year, and goes on to attract sufficient votes to become a parliamentarian, there is no doubt that South Africans will benefit from her experience and her knowledge - and from hearing her voice," he said. The former archbishop is one of a series of senior South Africans who have warned of growing disenchantment with the ANC, which has struggled to make a dent in the country's many social ills and is frequently accused of corruption and cronyism. Earlier this year, Graca Machel, the human rights activist and wife of Nelson Mandela, warned that South Africa was an "angry nation" teetering on the brink of "something very dangerous" if extreme levels of violence in the country were not addressed. Archbishop Tutu's office has been careful to stress that he is not openly endorsing Agang yet, merely its leader Dr Ramphele. But with the article published the day before the party's official launch, commentators said his intentions were clear. Professor Shadrack Gutto, a political scientist from the University of South Africa, said taken in the context of his comments on his ANC vote, it would be taken as an endorsement. "This is an endorsement and it's one that's sending a very strong message to the leadership of the ruling party that the political space is beginning to change and sooner or later it might find itself in a situation where it will no longer be able to take for granted that people will just follow it for what it did in the past," he said. Allister Sparks, a veteran political commentator and author, said his comments would undoubtedly help boost Dr Ramphele's chances of making it to parliament. "The ANC is highly sensitive at the moment and knows it's losing support," he said. It knows it will win the next elections but it will inevitably lose its vote share.