JOHANNESBURG, December 5, 2013 (AFP) – Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress rose from a local liberation movement to govern Africa’s richest country, but scandals and mismanagement have tainted its once glorious image.

Mandela, who died Thursday at 95, leaves behind a party that won equal rights for all South Africans 19 years ago and improved the lives of millions.

But Africa’s oldest liberation movement has lost much of its shine amid recurring corruption scandals, rampant inequality and sluggish economic growth.

File photo: Nelson Mandela

The party was founded in Bloemfontein as the South African Native National Congress in 1912 to fight against the white-minority government’s restrictions on black movement and land ownership.

In 1944, Mandela cofounded the ANC Youth League, which resisted oppressive regulations with a more militant spirit.

The apartheid government took power four years later, intensifying restrictions which it enforced with crushing brutality.

Authorities slapped a ban on the ANC in 1960.

The movement launched an armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), a year later, and its soldiers underwent training across the world, notably in the Soviet Union.

The United States and Britain branded Mandela and his comrades as “terrorists”.

The movement’s leaders, including Mandela, were imprisoned in 1964.

After inspiring global outrage over apartheid, the ANC overcame fears of civil war, instead spearheading South Africa’s peaceful transformation into a “Rainbow Nation” in 1994.

During its struggle for freedom, the ANC espoused socialist values and counted many communist members.

Once in power, however, the party chose economic liberalism, creating a new generation of “black economic power” that has changed the face of the continent’s biggest economy.

The nation’s black middle class today counts between two and three million people, and several ANC stalwarts have emerged as business tycoons.

But blurred lines between the worlds of politics and business have sparked repeated scandals — and stoked discontent among many ordinary South Africans who have yet to reap economic gains from their political freedom.

A former police chief has been jailed for graft and another minister sacked after using public funds to visit a girlfriend jailed in Switzerland.

Meanwhile upgrades worth at least $23 million (17 million euros) to President Jacob Zuma’s private rural home have sparked outrage, though he insists no tax money funded the renovations.

Amid renewed economic growth elsewhere in Africa, the continent’s largest economy grew 2.5 percent last year — far below its potential.

Massive discontent at basic services and low salaries sparked the largest and most violent strikes in post-apartheid history.

When thousands downed tools in the key mining sector last year, authorities reacted by sending police, who shot dead 34 people in one day.

The poor still bear the brunt of violent crime, shoddy public hospitals and schools, and 25 percent unemployment, while many live in grim shantytowns just as they did under apartheid.

Zuma, reelected party leader a year ago, has come under fire for placing political allies in influential posts such as the state prosecuting authorities.

Because of the sheer size of the ANC, internal dissension has become a national issue as a diverse membership seesaws between liberal policies and Marxist tendencies.

Critics charge that the party has strayed far from its liberation ideals.

“Our country is at risk because self-interest has become the driver of many of those in positions of authority who should be focused on serving the public,” said activist Mamphela Ramphele in launching a new opposition party in February.

Some of Zuma’s lieutenants have plotted against him, and he has been openly challenged by the ANC Youth League under the firebrand leadership of Julius Malema, who was kicked out of the party last year.

Critics have also voiced concern about the ANC’s stranglehold on parliament — where it holds 264 of the 400 seats.

Some fear that membership in the ruling party is seen as a gateway, or even a prerequisite, to business success.

“Out of all the African leaders who made it in business, all belong to the ruling party,” notes political analyst Joe Mavuso.