This is a big scalp for COPE. She is popular with the black population. This is yet another nail in the coffin of the ANC. They will win the 2009 election but expect them to lose by 2014 and be gone after that much like the Nats.
South Africa’s new political party, formed by ruling ANC dissidents, has been boosted by the defection of the country’s former deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.
Congress of the People (COPE) spokesman, Philip Dexter, confirmed reports that Mlambo-Ngcuka had joined the party as election campaigning heats up ahead of April 22 polls, set to be the most exciting since democracy in 1994.
“Yes, she will do so (announce her membership) in due course,” Dexter told AFP.
Mlambo-Ngcuka was joined by another high-profile African National Congress member, business tycoon Saki Macozoma.
The former deputy president left her post after former president Thabo Mbeki was recalled by the African National Congress (ANC) in September last year, a move which led disgruntled senior party members to break away and form the new party.
The new party has quickly gathered considerable support and is seen as the first viable black opposition party in a country where the ANC has held an overwhelming majority since Nelson Mandela was voted the country’s first black president 15 years ago.
COPE recently unveiled as its presidential candidate an unknown cleric, Reverend Mvume Dandala. While Dandala provides a stark contrast to scandal-hounded ANC chief Jacob Zuma, who faces corruption charges, critics have questioned the appointment of an unfamiliar face so close to the crucial elections.
The ANC this week announced that 300 COPE members had returned to the ruling party.
Macozoma told the Sunday Times: “The idea of a liberation movement that is the sole and authentic vehicle for the national democratic revolution and the aspirations of the people of South Africa no longer holds water."
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2 Opinion(s):
English speakers are now welcome to join FF+ too. I don't know whether I agree with the anti abortion stance, or that there are any real anti-Afrikaner Anglophiles left in SA, but Afrikaners certainly have a right to have Afrikaans as their medium of instruction at schools and universities just as long as they learn English to be able to understand what is happening in the rest of the world too.
Overall, the FF+ has some very good arguuments.
APPEAL: STAND UP FOR A BETTER
DISPENSATION!
Manifesto of the FF Plus for the general election of 2009
Compiled by the strategy and constitutional committees of the federal council on instruction of the executive management committee of the FF Plus and launched during the FF Plus’ National Conference in
Bloemfontein on Saturday 28 February 2009.
Stand up for a better dispensation
“Resistance is just as necessary as a nation’s loyalty. It is not dangerous for resistance to fail, what is dangerous, is that a whole generation passes by without any resistance.” NP van Wyk Louw
South Africa this year sees the "celebration" of 15 years of ANC rule.
After 15 years of ANC rule –
• Ill-considered government policy has amongst others lead to a
dramatic energy shortage, of which the consequences are still being
felt in the economic sector;
• More than 1 000 000 South Africans – mostly young talented
graduates- have left the country (often as a last resort) and have
sought a new home abroad;
• Crime levels and corruption have gotten stuck on unacceptably
high levels and successful crime combating and security units such
as the Scorpions, commandos and specialist units in the SAPD
have been closed down;
• The entry into the labour market by young school leavers have
been made nearly impossible through affirmative action;
• The status of Afrikaans as official language and language of
instruction in school and at tertiary institutions has been reduced considerably during the past 15 years. Parent communities such as that at Mikro Primary School and Kuruman and Ermelo High
School’s had to turn to the courts in order to try and protect their
status as Afrikaans schools;
• Afrikaner and other national heritages such as place names,
monuments and the Springbok Emblem, as a result of insensitive,
cultural vandalism, are in the cross-fire;
• Property rights – as a basic human right – are increasingly being undermined;
The result of this and other experiences which confront Afrikaners, is that a call is now being made to stand up for a better dispensation – a
dispensation which protects language and minority rights, keep Christian values in place and guarantee freedom and justice.
In this manifesto the FF Plus spells out its vision of how this has to be attained, specifically to broaden and deepen the democracy upon which these freedoms are built.
Freedom and Justice
Freedom can be described as the ability and right to make and carry out ones’ own decisions.
Just as for the majority of South Africans, freedom also stands central to the political thinking of the FF Plus. While the FF Plus recognises the freedom of the individual, the community as well as the state and where
applicable wants to protect it, there is vacuum in South Africa with regards to the claim to freedom by its communities.
Not only the state and individuals, but also its communities have a right to exist and have to take its rightful place in the formal setup of society.
From this follows, that the FF Plus chooses a federal and republican view of the state above a centralised or unitary view.
Christian values
The FF Plus professes and acknowledges the sovereignty of Christ in all spheres of life and in government as institutions of God to whom they are also answerable to.
Therefore the FF Plus strives for a political dispensation which is directed by Christian values and is characterised by the principles of justice, truth, neighbourly love, respect for life and property, loyalty and peaceful coexistence.
The FF Plus resists government actions and legislation which legalises abortion, harms religious-based education, disregards property rights,
allows for ethical and moral decay and entrench new forms of racism.
As a party which commits itself to clear religious convictions and which strives for freedom with justice, the FF Plus now proceeds to point out certain burning issues in our current political dispensation. Our vision for
a better society and what can be done to attain this, is revealed through this.
The FF Plus’ Manifesto for 2009
In the spirit of that which has been set out in the manifesto above, the FF Plus offers itself as an interest’s party which is based upon Christian values, a party which focuses on the Afrikaner and other minority
questions and which strives for freedom with justice.
Against this background, the FF Plus offers answers to the important questions which are the cutting edge in South Africa today. Some of these issues are:
- Transformation, quotas, diversity of the population and
nation building;
- Affirmative action and reversed discrimination;
- Education;
- Language rights and multi-lingualism;
- High levels of crime and safety;
- Women’s and children’s rights;
- Economic empowerment, development and job creation;
- HIV/Aids and health;
- Land and agricultural affairs;
- Environment;
- Foreign relations; and
- Protection of property rights.
The FF Plus is not only satisfied with the identifying of problems, but would also like to offer solutions for them. It is offered to the South African voter so that everyone who identifies with it, can vote for the FF Plus and strengthen our hands to promote this vision and proposals.
South Africa: a community of communities
The current recipe of nation building and the representation of the population compilation which dominates the ANC’s transformation
objectives today, does not provide for diversity. Many people experience it as excluding and negative. Afrikaners have a need to be recognised as a community and in so doing play a constructive role in the changing South Africa.
The FF Plus stands for the recognition and empowerment of independent communities. To accomplish this, the FF Plus advocates re-demarcation
of municipalities and even provinces to give shape to self reliant communities.
The Constitution offers various measures through which constitutional recognition could be given to the empowerment of communities with regard to key issues such as educational, safety, health and cultural
institutions.
Because the FF Plus is committed to realise and develop the right to self determination of linguistic and cultural communities, as intended in Section 235 of the Constitution, the party will in accordance with the terms of Section 126 of the Constitution1 campaign for the devolution of legislative and executive powers to community municipalities which ask for it.
Multi-party democracy and coalition politics
The FF Plus wants to organise and mobilise the Afrikaner Community as
a political community in order to, as a strong political community:
• Negotiate and protect minority rights, and
• Influence the balance of power in the political arena in favour of
the Afrikaner community.
The FF Plus therefore supports the principle of multi-party democracy
(which makes room for different communities to organise themselves
politically) rather than a two party democracy without any identity (where party members merely participate in the political process as individuals).
The diversity of South Africans can be represented and served much
better within a dispensation where minority rights are acknowledged and respected.
The FF Plus is furthermore convinced that it is detrimental if one party has too much power. The FF Plus therefore undertakes to form coalitions in legislative bodies where a single party does not have more than 50% of
the seats, based upon among others the following conditions –
• The promotion of the FF Plus’ policy objectives as set out in this document, and
• Restricting the power of the ANC.
Affirmative Action
Affirmative action has already caused 2,6 million black South Africans to rise to the top income levels of the country. At the same time more than 400 000 white South Africans, in particular as a result of affirmative action, have been sidelined away from the mainstream economy and have
fallen into hopeless poverty.
Today, black South Africans already form the majority of top earners.
Affirmative Action as a temporary measure has served its purpose and
should within the next five years be phased out by 2014.
The FF Plus is furthermore also campaigning for special measures to
have people who have been sidelined by affirmative action, placed back into the mainstream economy. With this objective in mind, the FF Plus proposes that:
- The Employment Equity Act, 1998, should be amended immediately to make provision for equal treatment for all young people;
- A moratorium be placed on affirmative action where a
shortage of skills have to be recruited or where positions are
vacant for a period longer than 90 days;
- An area or areas in South Africa are recognised as equality
areas and are exempted from affirmative action. This, for
example, could be a relatively disadvantaged area in the
Northern Cape which could draw development as a result of
this kind of exemption and could therefore offer new opportunities for current and future residents.
Systematic support for the disadvantaged of affirmative
action could be offered, for example by relocation in equality areas, entrepreneur training and starter packages which would enable them to still render an optimal contribution to the economy.
A clear cut-off point for affirmative action is established and enforced.
Society has to be normalised. Merit without discrimination should be the decisive factor to ensure a competitive economy.
Education
The FF Plus supports a system of parent and community driven mother
tongue education. Nobody is more concerned about the quality of
children’s education than precisely the parents of those children, while the resources of the state do not allow it to establish and manage all the
required schools on a sustainable basis and a high standard. That is why a partnership has to be entered into with parent communities to establish community schools with the state’s ssistance.
The Netherlands’s model for example relies on an estimation of the costs per child as provided for in the education budget, and pays this amount to the school of the parent’s choice. It can be administered by a system which issues education coupons to parents and which they then submit at the school of their choice. The education budget is then channelled
according to parent’s choice and parents can choose to maintain public schools, independent community schools or home schools through their coupons. Such a system brings about that children rather than schools are subsidised and increase the competition in the education sector, which in
turn then raises the standard.
Christian, Muslim, Greek and Jewish schools, each with its own ethos,are maintained in this way. The Indian Constitution (Section 30) also makes provision that every religion and language group can have its own school at the expense of the state. The Indian example can be imported into South Africa directly.
In short the FF Plus stands for:
- Mother tongue education, as research has shown without a doubt that it is the most advantageous for children;
- Parent governing bodies with powers such as to determine a
schools language and to see to it that it is enforced as parent’s have the biggest interest in the decisions which affect their children’s education;
- Afrikaans universities to ensure that Afrikaans students enjoy the best training opportunities and Afrikaans as a language of science is protected and developed; and
- A high standard of education to be able to compete internationally.
Language rights and multi-lingualism
The FF Plus views every language as much more than merely a medium
through which to communicate. A language is like a home. Everyone
who is deprived from his/her mother tongue, is in essence left homeless, his/her human dignity is infringed upon and is subjected to disorientation.
The FF Plus therefore stands for the recognition and development of all South Africa’s indigenous languages. It is a myth that a language continues to exist merely because it is being spoken. The reality is that everyday languages which do not poses authority and resources to maintain themselves in opposition to dominant and expansionist languages, will disappear. That is why the retention and development of
Afrikaans’ higher functions are important. Afrikaans is one of the only languages which, during the twentieth century, has gone through the whole process of modernising and therefore give valuable support and leadership to other language communities which want to accomplish the same. The survival of Afrikaans opens the way for the survival of other
indigenous languages.
The FF Plus therefore rejects the creeping language imperialism of
Anglophiles who, especially through education, but also through public institutions and government departments in the name of international trade and traffic, want to make indigenous languages subject to English.
Combating of crime
The FF Plus campaigns for a partnership between the South African Police Service on the one hand and community safety institutions on the other side to combat the escalating crime problem. In this regard, the
scrapping of the Scorpions and commando system is viewed as a step
back and is strongly condemned.
Where people are furthermore also forced to make use of private security services, it has to be paid at present from their after tax income. Because safety and the combating of crime is a key function of the state, it means
that the tax payer has to pay for it twice, while one sees, especially in urban areas, many more private security services than police members on patrol. That is why the FF Plus contends that security expenses for
individuals should be made tax-deductible.
The FF Plus supports the death penalty for extraordinarily violent murders and rapes. Although the FF Plus is opposed to continuous amendments of
the Constitution, a change which legalises the death penalty, will rather guarantee people’s rights, than infringe upon it. If the authorities neglect dealing with this issue, the appearance of vigilante acts in future could
become an everyday occurrence.
The FF Plus also supports the partial privatisation of the public
prosecutions function through a variety of measures which include:
- The relaxation of the requirements with regards to private prosecutions as set out in the Criminal Procedure Act;
- Outsourcing the prosecutions function to lawyers and advocates in private practice; and
- The implementation of so-called night courts for minor crimes where experienced lawyers and advocates can act as part time presiding officers (on the same principle as that which is already in place with regards to Small Claims Courts).
At present, less than ten percent of crimes committed lead to convictions and sentencing. An important reason for this is poor investigative and prosecutorial work. The outsourcing of criminal cases to private practitioners should on the one hand alleviate the burden on the overburdened public prosecutors and on the other hand create jobs for the
current oversupply of newly qualified legal practitioners. Further mechanisms should be created which allow communities, victims and even non-governmental organisations to join criminal procedures and in 10 this way render a contribution to the conviction of criminals, rather than taking the law into own hands.
Women’s and Children’s rights
The FF Plus has great appreciation for the role which women fulfil in
public life and civil society on every possible terrain.
The FF Plus supports women’s rights, but knows that it can only be realised in practice through the empowerment of women through the creation of opportunities and training. The FF Plus will campaign for this.
The role of women as mothers of our country’s children is an essential building block for healthy families and a healthy society.
The FF Plus therefore supports the measures which are aimed at
protecting women and children as vulnerable citizens against abuse.
Economic Empowerment, social development and combating of poverty
Sustainable, self reliant communities are the only counter measure against impoverishment in a global economy. The FF Plus supports an approach of empowerment of communities as an alternative for the government’s
model of black economic empowerment.
The policy of black economic empowerment has lead to black elite
empowerment through which wealth is being moved around rather than
being created. It has resulted in assets being merely distributed to specific black individuals instead of entrepreneurship and community upliftmen being encouraged. Economic empowerment in South Africa should not focus on the enrichment of single individuals but should rather concentrate on true empowerment of whole communities.
Critical elements of empowerment for which the FF Plus is campaigning is:
- The development of self reliant and sustainable local economies;
- Bigger decision-making powers for communities; and
- The application of growth and development rather than racial quotas as empowerment method.;
Poverty is a national problem which affects large components of our society from all communities. The phenomenon of increasing white and Afrikaner poverty as one of the unintended consequences of affirmative action and black economic empowerment also requires focussed attention.
Combating of poverty in the context of the community has through many years been tested as the most effective form of poverty alleviation and therefore the FF Plus will strive to promote community-based, social services and the party rejects the application of racial quotas (rather than a means test) in the allocating of state funding for social service organisations.
HIV/Aids and health
The prevalence of HIV/Aids in South Africa is still of crisis proportions.
The pandemic places unforeseen demands on our medical services and
facilities and on the whole economy and social structures of South Africa.
The FF Plus is of the opinion that the information pertaining to the
prevalence and distribution of this illness is of critical importance for coordinated actions and treatment. The FF Plus therefore supports the idea of making HIV/Aids a reportable illness and the provision of antiretroviral medicines to Aids-sufferers.
The FF Plus is however of the opinion that the pandemic will not be stopped by medical interventions alone but only through a comprehensive social re-orientation.
The FF Plus condemns the over-regulating of the medical fund industry through which these funds are being unreasonably taxed and the nett tax burden of individuals is increased.
The medical fund industry and private medical service industry is an essential partner in the establishment of a good quality health services for South Africa.
The FF plus will campaign for a national partnership between private and public medical services in which room is allowed for both to operate freely from unnecessary restriction, in the interests of a healthier
population.
Land and Agricultural Affairs
The FF Plus recognises the strategic value of the agricultural sector as food producer and employment provider in South Africa.
The FF Plus supports greater state spending on agricultural research to ensure that institutions such as the Agricultural Research Council and the water research commission can place South Africa at the cutting edge with regard to scarce resources.
Agriculture as primary industry in the economy is an essential role player as job creator, producer of food and multiplier of income in the economy and should therefore be protected by the authorities.
Agriculture should be protected against tariff and subsidy favouring of international role players and dumping of substandard imported agricultural products.
The FF Plus is still of the opinion that there is sufficient land for redistribution available, but that administrative procrastination is causing delays which is to the detriment of the country and which lead to unreasonable emotionality.
The FF Plus’ view is that unused state land should be used immediately for the redistribution and that the principle of “willing seller, willing buyer” should be followed thereafter.
The FF Plus is opposed to expropriation powers that are situated with the Minister and believes that such powers should belong to the High court, as a fundamental constitutional right is at stake here.
Environment, Energy and sustainable development
According to the first World Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the five
pillars of sustainable development were singled out, i.e.;
- Maintaining and increasing of output;
- Safeguarding resources;
- Restriction of risks (ex. Dumping of poisonous waste);
- Social acceptability; and
- Economic viability.
In agreement with this the FF Plus supports sustainable development as
development that reveals a clear ecological consciousness. On the basis of this, small scale and local development, which concentrates on self provisioning, food security and quality of life, is regarded highly.
The FF Plus supports attempts to develop renewable energy resources and work against the current exceptionally high levels of dependency on fossil fuels.
The FF Plus will also act as a watch dog against greedy enterprises which exploit burocratic shortcomings and corruption in government institutions in order to start non-sustainable and environmentally damaging projects.
Foreign Affairs
The FF Plus support international initiatives which at the same time
recognise the equality of all powers; respect the human dignity of all people; and recognise the independence of communities.
The FF Plus therefore rejects the ANC’s support for countries who are
condemned internationally for their human rights abuses.
This includes, condemning the ANC’s policy of silent diplomacy with regard to the crisis situation and human rights abuses in Zimbabwe.
Indications are that “silent diplomacy” is actually seen as “silent support”, as the government is not committed to silent diplomacy to the same level when it concerns the judgement and condemning of actions taken by Israel and other countries.
The FF Plus will continue to call for a truly democratically elected
government in Zimbabwe in order to ensure that development starts
taking place there and that human rights abuses are stopped.
The FF Plus makes itself available with this manifesto to represent the voters who share our views.
We appeal to Afrikaners and everyone who identifies themselves with us, to stand up against –
- The ANC’s centralisation of power;
- Marginalisation of Afrikaners and other minorities;
- Unreasonable affirmative action and discrimination;
- Crime, immorality and corruption; and
- The undermining of property rights.
But to, at the same time, take courage and together with the FF Plus stand up for –
- Afrikaans;
- Christian values;
- Reasonableness and merit;
- Equal opportunities; and
- Freedom with justice.
Vote FF Plus
Sorry, that should read 'arguments'. (Try not spell like a munt, Dachshund.)
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