Ubuntu Party sets sights on ‘conscious lifestyles’
FANCY a country where there is no Reserve Bank, where money is not the currency of choice and where you rule yourself somewhere in the countryside?
The Ubuntu Party promises to relieve you of Eskom’s loadshedding woes, banking on electromagnetic fields to keep the lights on.
All a bit too far fetched? Well, Michael Tellinger does not think so. The 53-year-old author and 1980s musician is convinced his fledgling party’s mission statement will give him the approximate 45 000 votes to secure a seat in parliament.
It is a movement of “higher consciousness”, he says, and has a “new freedom charter”, based on ubuntu.
Show business has been very helpful today to help me stand on the stage
It’s also about “contributionism” where everyone uses a talent or skill to benefit their community.
Tellinger says donors from Belgium, Norway, the US and Australia have contributed sums of between $10 and $10 000 to his party. He has claimed a kitty of nearly R1-million.
He might be a political novice, but the pharmacist is used to switching jobs.
In the late ’70s and ’80s he was in show business and was nominated in the best male vocal category of what used to be the Sarie awards. He has also written a book about aliens.
“Show business has been very helpful today to help me stand on the stage and talk to a large number of people and not feel nervous.”
Tellinger runs his party from a smallholding near Waterval Boven in Mpumalanga. He plans to turn the Ubuntu Global Community Village and Traveller’s Rest into “an abundance producing” town, farming fish and mushrooms and generating electricity.
He hopes it will become a model community. For now, there are no residents in the village, but about seven international volunteers have moved in and pay about R200 a night while they help with the work on the farm.
Australian Peter Ogg was building a big chicken coop on Wednesday. And although Tellinger is not counting his chickens before they hatch, he reckons Ubuntu is an alternative, if you are agitated by the cost of Nkandla, the Economic Freedom Fighters are not quite your cup of tea and the Democratic Alliance’s blue wave does not wash.
The party’s election manifesto includes eight principles, including the creation of a People’s Bank which would offer interest-free loans.