Khoza deserves a chance
AS AN invited guest at the recent inaugural presentation by former ANC MP Dr Makhosi Khoza at the Maharani Hotel conference centre, I was pleasantly surprised to see the cross-section of South Africans that attended.
Former liberation struggle icons, including former Natal Indian Congress members, civic leaders, human rights lawyers and ordinary citizens, evidently down in their patriotic spirit, extended the organisers to increase the capacity of the auditorium to accommodate everybody.
Even councillors and MPs from the DA were in attendance.
Whether they were disgruntled with the DA or were deployed as envoys to establish a potential competitor’s possible influence on the electorate is anybody’s guess.
Khoza, in an exuberant mood, delivered an already established panacea of ills afflicting South Africa today.
The party she intends leading has already had its fair share of naysayers before its launch, who have instantly denounced such a move as akin to the fate of Cope and Agang, as newly established political parties. She was brutal but factual in her autopsy of what she endured in her former political home, the ANC, and of course against the man whom she had the proverbial political gusto to stand up against – Jacob Zuma. She neither panegyrised her recent bravado or ululated any perceived heroism.
It was simply to placate those who have yielded mercilessly to corruption and its attendant disasters that plague us all, and to encourage those who want to take a stand against such a pathological disease, to join with her in this fight.
South Africa can only be stronger as a multiparty democracy, if more voices are heard, unpalatable as some might seem.
Obviously, power-mongers like the DA and ANC won’t take too kindly to a possible serious threat in their pursuit of ruling the country, but we must not obscure the spirit of democracy by shouting down a voice that could give us some hope again.
We cannot be so illiberal as not to allow different players on the political theatre and I am confident Makhosi Khoza, with the intrepidity she has shown, could be a breath of fresh air.
NARENDH GANESH Durban North