The Pan Africanist Congress is struggling to raise enough money to register with the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) and contest the national and provincial elections.
With the organisation wracked by internal divisions, deserted by its leaders and facing dwindling support, the Mail & Guardian has learned that the PAC has been told by potential donors to get its house in order before they can discuss committing funds to it.
During the 1994 election the party gained 1,25% of the vote. This dwindled to 0,7% in 1999. Now the party has also been decimated at parliamentary level, where its representation has decreased to two MPs after firebrand Patricia de Lille left to form her own party. The PAC also shed significant support after some members walked out of the last congress in Soweto, early last year, and formed a new structure called the All Africanist Congress.
The PAC has to raise R420 000 to pay for participation in national and provincial elections. The organisation has now instructed its provincial branches to raise money for themselves to pay the required R30 000 fee to the IEC to contest the provincial polls.
The party has also approached some trade unions, particularly those affiliated to the National Council of Trade Unions, for funds, but they have rebuffed it, insisting on the need for unity in its ranks.
Even if the PAC is able to raise money to register for the elections, it will still face the small matter of running an election campaign. Money will have to be spent on posters, billboards, media advertising and paraphernalia such as T-shirts.
But PAC deputy president Themba Godi said perceptions of a split were exaggerated and the party aimed to capture at least two million voters — roughly 10% of the vote.
”We are far more organised than ever. Our decline has long been arrested since we started creating provincial and regional structures. This image of a sickly PAC persists, but it does not define us. We are being judged on the basis of our past mistakes and all the good work we are doing now will take time to be recognised.”
On financial constraints Godi said: ”We obviously cannot have enough money to compete with the ANC equally. We are relying on both external and internal [funding], with focus on internal. All candidates are expected to contribute R1 000 or more.”
Godi added that the reason the PAC had so few posters was that the party was concentrating on ”person to person” contact.
A PAC veteran asked: ”Should the PAC lose the 1% support, what will happen to the PAC and to pan-Africanism? Given their credentials as a leading liberation movement in Africa, what will happen to the organisation and its legacy? People lost their lives for this organisation and spent lifetimes in prison. Are we going to lose all that history, lose our voice in Parliament and also lose the funding from the IEC?”