The Azanian People’s Organisation (Azapo) has suspended cooperation talks with the Pan Africanist Congress because it is unhappy with the lack of progress being made between the two parties, the party’s secretary general, Dan Habedi, said on Monday.
The decision, made at Azapo’s national executive committee meeting over the weekend, follows years of unsuccessfully trying to get the talks off the ground, Habedi said.
”After the first agreement to work out a cooperation agreement, the PAC never came to the party,” Habedi said.
”At the first meeting, I searched for them and phoned around for them and finally got the president who arranged that we meet, but only two people turned up and although we set up target dates and things to work on, it became very difficult to get hold of them and set up meetings. Now we just see them in the newspaper.”
Promises of cooperation between the two parties date back to the Eighties when the parties were banned, he explained, with recent attempts starting in about 2002.
Meanwhile, Azapo would pursue a partnership with the Socialist Party of Azania (Sopa) and with the Black People’s Convention (BPC).
Both Sopa and the BPC are Azapo breakaway parties.
Habedi said that the planned partnerships would benefit multiparty democracy and that a stronger opposition, particularly one drawn from liberation movements, would put pressure on the government to perform properly.
Azapo has one seat in Parliament, occupied by its president, Mosibudi Mangena, who is also the Deputy Minister of Education.
The party will launch its election manifesto in Polokwane on February 14.
The PAC has joined forces with the Dikwankwetla Party of South Africa to fight the 2004 election. — Sapa