The surprise choice of a politically inexperienced clergyman as its presidential candidate has exposed deep divisions within South Africa’s new opposition party weeks ahead of what had been expected to be the most fiercely contested elections since the end of apartheid.

The Congress of the People – formed in November following a split within the governing African National Congress – last week designated Bishop Mvume Dandala to challenge the ANC’s Jacob Zuma in an attempt to ease tensions between its two most prominent leaders, Mosiuoa Lekota and Mbhazima Shilowa. A party official on Sunday described the choice as “definitive” but it acknowledged that Bishop Dandala, the former head of the Methodist church in Southern Africa, had still not formally accepted and one prominent political analyst said on Sunday he could well turn down the nomination.