Former Pan Africanist Movement president Thami ka Plaatjie has defected to the ANC.
ANC Gauteng chairman Paul Mashatile made the announcement, flanked by Plaatjie, at a media briefing in Johannesburg on Monday.
"The ANC is their home, they are coming back," he said, describing the defection as a "consolidation of the democratic process".
Plaaitjie said his decision was preceded by "careful consideration" and was not an easy one.
"I came to realise that the best possible vehicle to take our people forward is the ANC," he said.
He spent 26 years in the Pan Africanist Congress and led a split from the PAC to form the Pan Africanist Movement.
He resigned from the PAM in December 2009.
He said he hoped to "contest ideas" within the ANC and promote the "politics of issues and not personalities".
"Politics must not be about personalities, it must be about ideas."
Mashatile also announced the defection of a member of the Congress of the People's Gauteng leadership, Jabulani Mahlangu, and Richard Chaka from the PAM.
"The home we tried to build , we can all see it's falling apart," said Mahlangu.
ANC provincial secretary David Makhura said the new members would join ANC branches, attend political school, and would be on probation for eight weeks.
They could not be elected into leadership structures for the first year of their membership. - Sapa