BRICS Should Admit More Members, South Africa’s Ruling Party Says

(Bloomberg) -- South Africa should use its 2023 chairmanship of the BRICS group of nations to push for the admission of new members to the political and economic grouping of major emerging markets, the country's ruling party said.

Expanding BRICS, which the African National Congress said accounts for a third of the world's gross domestic product, fits in with the party's push to strengthen alliances to counter the global dominance of developed nation economies such as the US. The proposal was included in a raft of as yet-to-be-adopted policies to be discussed at an ANC conference on Thursday.

“The ANC and ANC-led government should support the expansion of BRICS by admitting additional members on the basis of formally agreed criteria, principles, and values,” the party's commission on international relations said in the draft document seen by Bloomberg.

BRICS originally consisted of Brazil, Russia, India and China, with South Africa admitted in 2010. China's economy is more than double the size of the rest of the group combined. Saudi Arabia has received Russia's backing to join.

Read more: A Guide to the South African Governing Party's Policy Proposals

The policy document, which covers everything from geopolitics to education and how to combat rising crime levels, repeatedly bemoaned the decline of the so-called non-aligned movement and warned of the dangers of the “hegemonic developed countries in the global north.”

It also criticized members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for supplying arms to Ukraine for use against invader Russia, and said China was the target of an “intensification of geopolitical tensions and trade wars” by western nations.

The draft document suggested that South Africa should strengthen relations with Cuba and Venezuela and called for the lifting of “punitive and cruel sanctions” imposed against those countries as well as on Iran, Syria and Zimbabwe. It also proposed that a referendum be held to vote on the unification of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

--With assistance from .

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