”The Inkatha Freedom Party is blowing the whistle to stop corruption, the party is prepared to govern and we seek victory in the upcoming local government elections,” IFP president Mangosuthu Buthelezi said in Durban on Sunday.
Speaking at the launch of the party’s local government election campaign, Buthelezi said: ”Democracy empowers us with a right to change who governs.”
He said the ruling African National Congress stressed a better life for all, but instead they gave the people of South Africa a better life for the privileged only.
He added that the IFP would contest the 2006 election under the theme ”honour, service and delivery” in the hope of retaining municipalities and gaining those lost during the previous election and to floor-crossing.
The party lost many of its members, including senior officials, during floor-crossing last year, to the newly formed National Democratic Convention (Nadeco).
Nadeco was formed by then IFP national chairperson Ziba Jiyane in August after a public feud with Buthelezi over the IFP’s direction.
”Floor-crossing is like the HI virus because it robs the political system of all honour, holding political parties hostage by rendering them unable to discipline their own members.
”It allows the emergence of careerists, self-serving politicians, which are a very strange breed because they do not honour the sanctity of the vote cast in the ballot box,” Buthelezi said.
He also stressed the need to wipe out corruption in order to run municipalities effectively, adding that the IFP would act quickly and decisively should any councillor be found guilty of corruption.
The IFP believed that people should make decisions that affect their own lives and should be empowered to do so.
”That is why local government matters and why the people’s first municipal democracy is so important.”
The IFP dominates 41 out of 61 councils in KwaZulu-Natal. The party has deployed members to Gauteng, the Eastern Cape and Limpopo to garner support in those provinces with the hope of winning municipalities there.
The party will later hold a rally at Umlazi at the King Zwelithini Stadium.
Meanwhile, Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said on Saturday that South Africa’s economic growth must be better shared among all in the country.
”Not enough people are sharing,” Mlambo-Ngcuka, who is also a member of the ANC’s national executive committee, said during the launch of her party’s election campaign in Kimberley.
She said as the country’s economy grew, South Africa should make sure it was shared down to all levels.
Referring to the R400-billion infrastructure development plan, she said it was time to involve women in it.
”If we [women] miss it, we miss the boat,” she told about 3 000 ANC supporters who attend the event at Galeshewe Stadium at Kimberley in the Northern Cape.
The ANC was committed to hands-on approach towards municipalities,” Mlambo-Ngcuka said.
”We will help those that cannot make it through Project Consolidate [a project aimed at struggling municipalities in the country],” she said.
”They must support the ANC in the forthcoming local government elections to enable the party to bring a team that would take excellent service to communities.
”On the March 1, the ANC wants to renew its contract with people at local government level,” she said.
Mlambo-Ngcuka, who has been embroiled in controversy over her trip to the United Arab Emirates, urged future councillors to be civil servants and ”not civil masters”.
Reporters waited for more three hours for her to arrive at the event, which was scheduled to start at 10am but eventually kicked off at about 1pm. – Sapa