Sechaba ka’Nkosi
General Bantu Holomisa’s newly formed United Democratic Movement (UDM) this week held an intense meeting with former Transkei ruler Chief Kaizer Mantanzima and his brothers George and Ngangomhlaba in the rural village of Qamata to solicit their support as the party begins its preparations for the 1999 rural elections.
The meeting forms part of a massive recruitment drive by the UDM to target high-profile personalities such as former ministers, chiefs, bureaucrats and civil servants who are disgruntled with the African National Congress-led provincial government in Bisho.
Party insiders say the meeting was held at the request of Ngangomhlaba Matanzima – a traditional chief – to give the movement a chance to explain itself to local tribesmen and communities. It is not yet clear what transpired, but it is believed that the Mantanzima brothers – notably Ngangomhlaba and George – expressed keen interest in joining hands with the party.
Already the party boasts former ministers such as Khulisile Nota and Chief Dumisani Gwadiso among its leaders in the Transkei region, says Somthunizi Gazi, a senior civil servant in the former homeland administration who is now the party’s chair in the Eastern Cape.
The three are said to have been central in the so-called Concerned Transkeians group which lobbied for the region to be declared the 10th province of South Africa.
Gwadiso said the development represents the party’s acceptance by the electorate and a vote of no confidence in the ANC and its reform policies. He argues that the ruling party never consulted those who voted it into power before it liberalised abortion laws and included the abolition of the death penalty in the Constitution.
“Our stand is that the government must be more accountable to the electorate than appointed structures such as the Constitutional Court,” says Gwadiso. “If calling for a referendum on such crucial policies is perceived as populist, then we are populist.
“But what we know is that we are at the stage where we can replace the ANC government in the province and go on to become the official opposition party in the National Assembly after the general elections in 1999. What happened in Gauteng is just an indication of how popular we have become to the electorate,” says Gwadiso, referring to the Roodepoort by- election two weeks ago where the UDM came third to the Democratic Party in a National Party stronghold.
Gwadiso claims since the party was launched two months ago it has recruited more than 20 000 members in Umtata alone. Next week he hopes to launch the two biggest branches in townships outside Umtata.
UDM leaders constantly refer to two other incidents as a yardstick for their growing popularity in the province: a survey recently conducted by the Institute for Democracy in South Africa indicated that the party could have as much as 12% of the total electorate in the province, and in October Holomisa addressed a 20 000-strong crowd at the Independence Stadium a few days after the party was launched.
This yardstick is, however, dismissed by political commentators as both ambitious and untested. They say the UDM has hijacked the Pan Africanist Congress populist agenda and is, therefore, more likely to make inroads on the PAC’s membership than the ANC.
Professor Roger Southall of Rhodes University says members of Matanzima’s Transkei National Independence Party defected to the PAC when the country opened up in the early 1990s. He says these members are now leaving the PAC for the UDM as both parties gun for the same constituency.
“There is nothing that the UDM can offer as an alternative to the ANC. I think what they are doing now is to try and rally traditional chiefs and beneficiaries of the former homeland system behind them. I would not even be surprised if local structures such as taxi associations align themselves with the UDM in the build-up to the next elections,” Southall said.
“But my assessment is that they will only win about 5% of the electorate in the Transkei and definitely less in other parts of the country.”