How does an upstart political party with hardly any funding rationalise its campaigning in the Cape before the 2014 elections?
|||Cape Town - How does an upstart political party with hardly any funding rationalise its campaigning on the streets of the Cape Flats before general elections next year alongside giants such as the DA and ANC?
“It’s simple. The big parties have done most of our work for us already. All we have to do is come in the wake of their corruption and failures and ask people honestly, do you want another four years, a lifetime of this?” says party president Armien Albertyn.
He was referring to an incident last week when DA Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille was booed off a stage during a community hearing about service delivery in Philippi.
Speaking from offices in Salt River, leading members of the South African People for Equality, which launched as a political party last month, said their vision was simple: participatory democracy which would see disenfranchised communities take a more active role in government policymaking.
The party sells itself on a hard angle of realism and “zero promises” in defiance of large political parties scoring “cheap points through false promises”, according to Albertyn.
He said the party was already in the throes of campaigning for 2014 while the ruling party and official opposition “waste their energy on political bickering”.
While Albertyn and his staff say they are gaining traction, claiming membership figures of “a few thousand”, because of door-to-door campaigns in suburbs such as Bonteheuwel, Ottery and Manenberg.
The party supports the nationalisation of the mines, an interpretation of the Freedom Charter’s “South Africa belongs to all who live in it”, limiting foreign corporate ownership of businesses in South Africa to a maximum of 40 percent in shares, and has a sympathetic take on Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe’s defiance of the West.
Albertyn maintains his allegiances lie with the will of the common people, poor citizens, and says the party’s policies and objectives are designed to appeal to this sector of the electorate.
The South African People for Equality has also opened satellite offices in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, and its immediate ambition is to win a “handful” of seats in next year’s general election.
daneel.knoetze@inl.co.za
Cape Argus