Mashaba’s visit leads to showdown with rival party over venue booking
ActionSA leader addresses crowds at three stops in Makhanda
ActionSA president Herman Mashaba has brushed off alleged intimidation and the disruption of a campaign meeting in Makhanda on Saturday January 27 and declared his visit to the Eastern Cape with provincial chair Athol Trollip successful.
Makhanda was the last stop in a three-day tour in which he engaged with communities in Kwazakhele, Kariega, St Francis Bay, Jeffreys Bay and Makhanda.
Mashaba and Trollip began the Makhanda leg of their tour at the Graham Hotel in the CBD, proceeded to Nathaniel Nyaluza Secondary School in Fingo Village, and ended up at the Extension 9 community hall in Joza. The theme of the tour was ‘Education the key to prosperity’.
In the Makhanda CBD, a group of around 30 residents and businesspeople gathered on Saturday morning to listen to Mashaba and Trollip.
Speaking to a receptive audience, the Black Like Me founder said he had used the capitalist route to liberate himself.
Mashaba struck a chord with many of those present, when he decried the current labour laws and black economic empowerment regulations as “a scheme by big unions and big business to get small businesses out of business”.
Mashaba said this was the cause of SA’s high rate of unemployment.
Mashaba linked the country’s dysfunctional schooling with SA’s R28m spending on social grants, saying that keeping people “dependent on handouts” deprived them of their dignity.
“This government wants to keep people poor and dependent,” Mashaba said.
Mashaba elaborated colourfully on several other “trigger” issues, including border control (“our open borders are allowing international criminals to come in and destroy our youth with drugs”); the fact that since democracy, SA has been a secular state (“the communists want to take God out of us…”) and the rights that convicted criminals enjoy.
He alluded to the International Court of Justice ruling earlier this week, that Israel must do everything within its power to prevent genocidal acts against people living in Gaza, saying: “Genocide is happening in SA as we speak: 80 are murdered a day… every 11 minutes a woman is raped”.
Mashaba also took a swipe at the role of the legal profession, saying: “I pray that one day we have real human rights lawyers who can take this government to court.”
Summarising ActionSA’s attitudes and policies, Mashaba said they were “unapologetic about doing away with all racebased legislation”. Instead, the business community would contribute to an opportunity fund. They would do away with the current labour laws and allow the private sector to operate “without interference”.
“People go into business to make money, not to exploit people,” he said to warm applause.
Addressing unspoken questions about his political career, Mashaba repeated the disclaimer that he “hates” his job. He also reiterated that he’d accepted the DA’s mayoral candidacy because “I was in politics to remove the ANC from power and to do it democratically”.
Mashaba said predictions for the 2021 local government elections were that ActionSA would get three seats in the City of Johannesburg Council. “We got 44 councillors,” he said.
Asked how sustainable a coalition government would be, given that the parties involved did not have shared principles or policies, Mashaba said the partners in the Multiparty Charter had been in discussion for the past nine months.
“Most parties only start multiparty negotiations after the elections,” he said.
Because they wanted to hit the ground running, they had
already started that process.
“After elections there are only 14 days to negotiate for the formation of a new government,” he said. “Our negotiations are ongoing unlike others who only start negotiations after elections.”
Elaborating further on the sustainability of a multiparty coalition government, Trollip said: “We have to trial it: we’ve had 130 years of one party domination and that’s what we’re used to.”
Trollip spoke about his time as mayor of Nelson Mandela Bay, saying seven motions of no confidence had failed to collapse that coalition government. “It took one of our own to abstain to collapse that government,” he said.
At Nathaniel Nyaluza Secondary School, in Fingo Village, Trollip addressed parents in isiXhosa, and Mashaba spoke in English.
Both spoke about the party’s “plan to fix education” as set out in their pamphlet. This included bringing back school inspectors; focusing on practical skills in higher education; combining basic and higher education into one department; reopening teacher training colleges; updating the school curriculum
“so young people are prepared for economic success”; focusing on reading and maths; and ensuring “fair education laws”
the party is opposed to the BELA Bill in its current form.
The next leg of the party’s engagements in Makhanda was in Extension 9, Joza.
It was there that the party said there was a deliberate attempt to disrupt the meeting.
The party’s Makana region chair Nomfundo Tame said: “We booked the venue until 1pm. But already by 10am there was an ANC gazebo outside the venue, and an ANC bakkie playing music loudly.
“Unfortunately [Mashaba] arrived at the venue later than scheduled.
“I tried to negotiate with the ANC members to give us an extra 10 minutes, but instead they just occupied the hall.”
Undeterred, the ActionSA delegation instead met outside.
But Tame believes the fact that the music playing very loudly from the ANC bakkie only stopped when Mashaba stopped speaking was an indication that the disruption was deliberate. She said it was part of a pattern, where ActionSA would book a municipal venue for a meeting,
only to experience some form of disruption. This had happened the previous week at a meeting scheduled to take place at the municipal offices in ward 2, Joza, she said.
Making it difficult to raise a concern with the IEC was the fact that the booking had been made under the name of the South African National Civic Organisation (SANCO), which is not a political party.
However ANCcouncillor for Makana’s ward 3, Andile Hoyi, who was present as convenor for Sanco, had no qualms about reporting ActionSA to the IEC, and planned to do so as soon as the IEC offices opened on Monday January 29.
“We booked the hall from 1pm to 4pm,” Hoyi said.
Both ActionSA and Hoyi said that Mashaba had arrived shortly before 1pm.
Hoyi sent the Dispatch a pamphlet advertising the Sanco
Sarah Baartman Region’s ‘Mama Morose’ [detachment] volunteer launch at 1pm in the Extension 9 Hall.
The pamphlet also said ‘register to vote’. The positioning of a graphic with the letters ANC results in it reading, ‘register to vote ANC’. However, “This was not a programme of the ANC,” he said.
“[ActionSA’s] people started arriving from 10am,” Hoyi said.
Explaining the presence of the music-playing ANC bakkie, he said, “They [the ANC] were there because we asked them to be part of our programme.
“We also asked Cosatu and the SACP to be there.
“The ANC bakkie did nothing wrong,” said Hoyi, who said he was not there in his role as ANC councillor, but as a Sanco convenor.
Asked why, if they were there as a civic organisation, they planned to complain to the IEC, Hoyi said this was because ActionSA, a political party, had disrupted their (Sanco’s) event.
ActionSA’s Tame said: “Instead of focusing on their programme, the ANC is reactive: every time we book a venue for a meeting, they or their allies organise something that effectively disrupts it.
“The ANC should be providing an example of mature politics. It’s very disappointing that an old political party like the ANC should be resorting to these kinds of tactics,” Tame said. “They must cool down.
“They must do their own programmes and let other political parties do theirs.”
Talk of the Town would like to help our readers gain insight into the policies and practices of the parties contesting in the 2024 national elections.
If your party is planning a campaign event in Ndlambe, or in the town of Makhanda, please let us know so we can plan to cover it. Email us at editorial@talkofthetown.co.za