 According to the party's manifesto flyer, COPE's campaign topics for the 2009 elections are maintaining the constitutional status quo, unemployment, job satisfaction, poverty, the environment, secondary and tertiary education, health care in general, crime, women empowerment, youth development, family values, and future non-racialism.A main distinction between COPE and the ruling ANC party is that COPE favours a system in which top-level government officials are elected directly, by public election, and officials can be removed only by courts of justice, whereas the current situation in South Africa is that top-level government officials are appointed and can be removed from office by the political parties themselves.Before settling on the name "Congress of the People" and the abbreviation "COPE", several possible names were used or suggested by the party founders themselves and through speculation in the media.