ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe on Wednesday urged coloured people to stop thinking of themselves as a minority and slammed claims that they were underrepresented within the ANC.

Addressing about 500 people in the Austerville Community Hall in Durban's predominantly coloured suburb of Wentworth, Mantashe said: "When you get locked in to the idea of minorities you think like a minority."

He said he was against the term minorities "because it divides people. We must see ourselves as one group".

One resident complained he "was not white enough under the apartheid government and not black enough under the current government".

Mantashe responded: "You are not absent. You are present within the ANC."

He rattled off the names of a number of well-known "coloured" ANC members including current finance minister Trevor Manuel and Geoff Doidge.

Referring to the ANC's bid to interdict Cope from using the name, Mantashe said that the 1955 Kliptown Congress of the People was "a heritage that belongs to all of us. Nobody must steal that heritage that belongs to all of us."

He said he was hopeful that there would be a successful outcome for the ANC in its Pretoria High Court bid.

He said, however, that the ANC "is not preoccupied with the gang of three who have left the ANC".