Sechaba ka’Nkosi
Disillusionment with the African National Congress and hopes of pulling off surprises in next year’s general election made up the vision that guided the United Democratic Movement at its springboard first national congress at the weekend.
It became evident that while the black leaders of the party would launch a battle to lure support away from the former liberation movement, their white counterparts would continue drawing support away from established white parties.
Masking the vagueness of official policy was a forthright, vote-catching populism which includes support for a referendum on the death penalty and criticism of the ANC’s failure to live up to its pre-1994 promises of job creation, housing and social services.
And while there is lack of common vision between the UDM’s predominantly black rural membership and their white urban middle- class counterparts, they both appear united by the party’s populist agenda and its anti-ANC rhetoric.
However, there is disagreement on the extent to which the UDM is capable of turning the general disillusionment with existing political parties into actual votes.
Coupled with this are questions about the UDM’s actual support and membership, and whether the party can make a significant dent in the ANC’s support base.
The UDM’s official membership was given at the congress as 50 000, with nearly 600 branches nationally.
Steve Friedman of the Centre for Policy Studies says recent surveys in informal settlements around Gauteng have failed to prove any following, while the support claimed in the Eastern Cape is questionable.
Friedman cites the fact that most of the party’s supporters in the province are concentrated in the former Transkei. This, he says, is mainly derived from the hostility of former homeland bureaucrats towards the ANC and the historical rivalry between Transkei and the former Ciskei on where the provincial legislature should have been housed.
Meanwhile, the UDM’s national management committee is infested with individuals who are alleged to have had links with the apartheid establishment.
It came as no surprise when expelled ANC leader and KwaZulu-Natal Midlands strongman Sifiso Nkabinde trounced Rustenburg attorney Jacobus Maseka by more than 1 000 votes to take the party’s general secretary position, the fourth most prestigious position in the UDM.
Nkabinde’s resounding victory was coupled with a similar win by former National Party local government co-ordinator in Gauteng, Annelise van Wyk, as deputy general secretary.
Prior to the emphatic victories by Nkabinde and van Wyk, UDM co-founders Bantu Holomisa and Roelf Meyer and little-known former ANC exile Esau Mabeta were elected unopposed as president, deputy president and national chair respectively.
The congress adopted a resolution to challenge the government’s funding of political parties during the election and rejected suggestions by leaders for possible alliances with other opposition parties.
The UDM’s national leadership battled to make calls for a referendum on the death penalty, abortion and power relations between men and women heard by the 1 236 voting delegates at the congress, as most made no bones about their objections.
One delegate from Port Elizabeth openly challenged a female colleague’s demand that the party condemn the abuse of women and children.
Said the delegate: “If we are a moral organisation that abides by Christian values, we must not even engage in such debates.
“The Bible tells us that a man is always the head of the family and that is what the reality is.”