UDM’s Tsipa quits, forms own party

JUST weeks after he was kicked out of a meeting on suspicion that he had registered his own political party using UDM resources, the party’s founding member and former provincial secretary Wandile Tsipa has resigned.

Tsipa, who has been with the UDM since it was established 20 years ago, said he was so frustrated and pushed to the edge by leaders that he had decided to call it quits

“Deciding to leave the UDM and form a political party was never an overnight thought, but it was an accumulation of frustrations over what I and other members loyal to the party noted – that the UDM had regressed,” he said.

“It will only be a person that is in denial who will say the UDM is not regressing.”

Last month, Tsipa was kicked out of a leadership meeting in Mthatha by party leader Bantu Holomisa.

Holomisa’s claim that Tsipa was forming a political party was confirmed when he admitted to registering his own party, the African Change Academy.

Tsipa, who was under investigation by the UDM over the registration of a new party while still working as a UDM deployee in the King Sabata Dalindyebo municipal council, resigned before he could appear before the disciplinary committee.

Times Media has seen a letter from Tsipa addressed to the UDM leadership and dated April 18 in which he said: “I wish to inform your office of my resignation from the UDM effectively from 19th April 2017.

“My personal reasons is that as both a co-founder and UDM member, looking back into political problems I have been encountering within the party, to me it gave me an impression that I may have overstayed my welcome in the party I have dedicated my life to.”