2009 opened on a sad note. On 1 January we lost one of our country's most eminent citizens: Helen Suzman. Helen has left a rich political legacy that will inspire us in the years ahead. It is a legacy of opposing power abuse, while upholding the core purpose of government: to provide real opportunities for all citizens in a free society to use their talents and follow their dreams, and become the best they can be.

We have given Helen's vision a short definition. We call it the "open, opportunity society for all". It is the exact opposite of the "closed, crony society for some". The difference between these two approaches is the difference between success and failure in an emerging democracy.

Helen strongly opposed the "closed, crony society for some" both before and after 1994. Despite our new constitution that promised a fresh start and held out real potential for an open society, Helen was as disillusioned as many others that President Mbeki's ANC wasted no time in concentrating power in fewer and fewer hands, deploying loyal cadres to control all institutions of state and serving the interests of a party faction rather than all the people. President Mbeki even extended the tentacles of the closed, crony society beyond state institutions, deploying ANC cadres to businesses in return for the promise of state tenders. This is the classic start of the corruption cycle that is a feature of every closed, crony society.

The split in the ANC is a direct result of the struggle for control between rival factions of a patronage-based system. When the Zuma faction beat the Mbeki faction at Polokwane, the victors promptly did what victors do in such organisations - they purged their defeated rivals, taking revenge for similar treatment before the tables were turned. The vanquished knew they would be banished from the Zuma ANC's election lists. This meant their political careers would end unless they could create an alternative route to re-election. The result was a split in the ANC, and the birth of COPE, led by the very people who helped Thabo Mbeki hone and polish the closed, crony system and blur the lines between party and state - a step which often signals the irreversible decline of an emerging democracy.

COPE now faces the challenge of showing that it is different from the ANC, that it is not merely a bunch of sore losers seeking to hold on to their positions by creating a separate electoral platform for themselves.

In the week ahead, both COPE and the ANC will launch their election manifestos, and it will be interesting to analyse them. I expect many fine words and laudable sentiments. The test is whether they can be implemented. And that is determined by the core philosophy of governance which is unlikely to appear in either manifesto. On their existing track record, both parties are likely to see government as an employment bureau for party loyalists, families and friends, and a means of dispensing patronage through tenders and contracts.

This inevitably results in the "shell state" or "vampire state" where leaders hide behind populist rhetoric to advance their own interests and those of their closed, patronage circle. These societies have all the superficial trappings of power (such as blue-light convoys) - but none of the substance of democratic governance. The clearest example of the outcome of the closed, crony system is Zimbabwe - despite the fine-sounding rhetoric in ZANU-PF's election manifesto.

On the few occasions that Mosiuoa Lekota has tried to differentiate COPE's approach from the ANC's, he has left behind more questions than answers. Take his statement about removing "race" from affirmative action. COPE quickly retreated from this position after a stinging rebuke from the Black Lawyers' Association. And Lekota himself cannot explain what actual policy proposals would translate his idea into action. It will be very interesting to see whether COPE's manifesto provides any detail.

In any event, manifestos are not always the best guide to a party's philosophy or policies because there is often a vast difference between what they say and what they do.

The best place to find out where a party stands is to examine its own candidate selection procedures. If you compare the processes of compiling election lists, currently underway in all the major parties, it is quite clear that the DA's is the only selection process based on the "open, opportunity" model. This starts with a clear job description for Members of Parliament, followed by a wide search for, and evaluation of, a diverse range of candidates who share the same values and fit the role they will be required to fulfil in service to the public.

Ironically, the party's list selection process that most closely conforms to the "closed patronage model" is COPE's. A small leadership group chooses every other representative in the party, including themselves.

While all candidate selection processes create a measure of conflict, it is predictable that the COPE approach will still result in profound ructions for the new party.

Despite all these reservations, there is no doubt that COPE is a positive development in the maturation process of South Africa's emerging democracy. It is essential to break up the ANC monolith if we want to become a successful, open society. Untrammelled power inevitably leads to abuse, corruption and criminalisation. COPE is assisting to loosen the ANC's stranglehold on power. This is a good thing, even though COPE emerged because its leaders lost power in the ANC, not because they are opposed to the concentration of power per se. Despite this irony, the break up of the ANC serves to take South Africa's democracy forward. It is a re-run of the breakaway of Bantu Holomisa's UDM in 1997.

The DA and our philosophy of an open, opportunity society for all is the real winner from the split in the ANC because while COPE's emergence undercuts the ANC's prospects and dominance of the electoral landscape, the DA remains the only party with a credible alternative vision for South Africa. Moreover, the ANC's disintegration creates new opportunities for the DA to be part of governments across South Africa and put our vision into action.

With or without COPE, the ANC's continued disintegration is inevitable. The ANC no longer has a coherent, binding philosophy, without which it is impossible to hold together a party claiming to be a "broad church". Its decline will still take a long time, but it has irreversibly begun.

It is important for an opposition party to prevent a monopoly on power. But this is not enough. It is equally important to offer a clear alternative vision, with a set of practical, affordable policies to turn South Africa into a successful democracy. The DA's vision of the open, opportunity society IS that alternative. When we release our manifesto early in February, it should be clear to all South Africans that the substantive choice in this election is between the ANC's "closed crony society for some" and the DA's "open, opportunity society for all".

The emergence of COPE, and the role it plays in breaking down the ANC's monolith, should not blur this fundamental distinction. If it does, it could do more harm than good.

This article by Helen Zille first appeared in SA Today, the weekly online newsletter of the leader of the Democratic Alliance, January 9 2009