Members of parliament -- in which the ANC is virtually assured of having a majority -- will elect the president next month.
The BBC's Peter Biles in Johannesburg says that coming from South Africa - the most powerful country in the region - the ANC statement is a further sign of Mr Mugabe's growing isolation.
Earlier this month, he was re-elected ANC leader, beating off a challenge by his rival, Kgalema Motlanthe.
Then there's the ANC's own Julius Malema - hardly a Cicero but an undisputed master of the punchy soundbite.
So the guess is that the ANC will still get a good two-thirds of the vote in the coming election, on April 22nd.
Presumed president-to-be Jacob Zuma -- an ethnic Zulu whose flamboyant style sits in contrast to more staid predecessors Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki -- led a raucous rally in Johannesburg, telling thousands of cheering supporters the ANC will outstrip its goal of two-thirds control in parliament.
South Africa's apartheid government had designated the ANC a terrorist organization during the group's decades-long struggle against whites-only rule.
"This is the first time a substantial body of workers is splitting away" from the ANC's union, said Devan Pillay, a labor-relations professor at Wits University.
Some analysts believe that by acting against Mr Malema, Mr Zuma believed that he was removing a key opponent as he seeks re-election as ANC leader in December.
Neither the Congress of the People (COPE), a splinter of the ANC, nor the once formidable Zulu-dominated Inkatha Freedom Party seemed sure to survive, as their share of the poll plummeted.
In the Western Cape, the ANC's provincial secretary was stabbed in the neck at a party get-together.
During their policy conference in May 1992, the ANC made specific commitments to education in South Africa, inter-alia, provision of a minimum of 10years free and compulsory education, provision for those with special learning needs, improving educational quality, ensuring education for young people expelled or having dropped out of school as a consequence of apartheid, provision of adult education, leading to the establishment of a single non-racial, equal and democratic education system.
ANC's unionists, and the resistance of some cabinet colleagues, Mr Mbeki introduced a market-friendly policy last year that has greatly helped restore confidence in South Africa's economy.
But the ruling party - the ANC - still leans heavily on its liberation history, and on Mr Mandela in particular, and it does have a lot to lose.
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