Johnny Masilela
Chief Lucas Mangope’s political comeback has been smacked by a stream of high-profile defections from his United Christian Democratic Party (UCDP) – among them his own sister.
It has also emerged that Roelf Meyer’s and Bantu Holomisa’s United Democratic Movement (UDM) is the main beneficiary of Mangope’s losses.
Celia Ditsetelo, Mangope’s younger sister and a senior member of the UCDP Women’s League, and former chair Johan de Wet were among a string of former senior UCDP officials attending a UDM rally in Rustenburg two weeks ago.
The defections are likely to prove an embarrassing blow to Mangope, president of the former Bophuthatswana, who has previously sought to jump aboard the Holomisa-Meyer wagon.
Such plans have crumbled as Mangope dithered over whether he should simply disband the UCDP and present its membership to the UDM, or continue the party.
The latest defections caught Mangope flat- footed. “Did she [Mrs Ditsetelo] also attend [the UDM rally]? Was he [Dr de Wet] also there?” he says. “I’m not able to comment at all because they did not inform me about their decision.”