Chiara Carter
The Pan Africanist Congress is spelt “Pat” in several townships and platteland towns in the Western Cape.
PAC MP Patricia de Lille’s involvement in bread-and-butter issues is helping the party make inroads into coloured communities in the Western Cape – and attract a handful of white members.
This weekend the PAC will launch its South Peninsula region made up of branches in traditionally coloured areas like Mitchells Plain, Lavender Hill, Steenberg, Blue Downs and Ocean View – as well as Muizenberg, where the party boasts white members. Each branch has at least 50 members; the long- established branch in Tafelsig, an economically depressed area of Mitchells Plain, has more than 300.
But the party’s growth is not confined to the city. Next in line to be launched is the Overberg region which will bring together PAC branches from towns like Bredasdorp, Napier, Riviersonderend and the fishing village Struisbaai.
These towns, generally regarded as grist to the mill of more conservative parties, face severe social problems.
While parties like the African National Congress and the Democratic Party debate how to sway coloured voters who hold the key to power in the region, De Lille and her assistant are getting out there.
De Lille said recruitment to the PAC in these areas is “issue driven”.
She said many people initially did not understand PAC policies but were attracted to the organisation because she was willing to come to their areas and help solve issues, which range from leaking roofs and high service charges to social ills.
This week she made a detour after a meeting in Riviersonderend to go to Kleinmond, where police allegedly assaulted a civic organiser.
She has also been helping the community at Kleinbegin near Bredasdorp negotiate with the council about their claims of shoddy housing.
De Lille’s work in the area was reported in a local newspaper and it translated into an approach by a group of about 20 white women who are interested in joining the PAC.
One woman, who did not want to be named, said she had approached the PAC because De Lille was helping the community. She did not know much about the party and was not really interested in issues like Africanism.
Said De Lille: “People are often ignorant about what the PAC means. They have been divided by apartheid. Often they associate the PAC with stereotypes of terror, race clashes and so on.
“But they see me as `one of them’ and I am willing to get involved in issues that are vital in poor communities where nothing much has changed since the days of apartheid. The policies and views of the organisation come later.”
A recent Markdata poll placed PAC support in the Western Cape at 14%, raising eyebrows, including many in the PAC, which is struggling to overcome the perception it is a “1%” party nationally. But a later Markinor poll puts the PAC’s support in the Western Cape back at 1%.
De Lille said the Markdata sample might have been done in an area the PAC had recently worked. She is more modest in her estimates, saying the party might have the support of about 5% of voters in the region.