Compelling reasons need to be provided by the Inkatha Freedom Party to ensure the support of voters, leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi said at the opening of the party’s 33rd conference in Ulundi on Friday night.
”Today, and during this conference, we all have to look at the reasons why voters should support us with their votes as IFP in the forthcoming election. If we do not provide a compelling answer to that question then we are already doomed,†said Buthelezi.
”I know that of all opposition parties that the IFP is the party that operates against most odds.”
Buthelezi said that apart from getting a raw deal from ”certain hostile sections of the media” he also singled out analysts, who, in providing their opinion of the IFP, were ”activists of the ruling party masquerading as political analysts”.
The IFP’s national congress, which officially opened on Friday evening, will continue until Sunday and has adopted the theme ”honesty, integrity and courage”.
He said that while there were billions of rands in the government’s coffers, the lives of ordinary South Africans had not been improved.
”The point I wish to make upfront is that the availability of these billions could have made a better life for the poorest of the poor were it not for the fact that honesty, integrity and courage are rare commodities that are not in abundance amongst us, as representatives of the people at all these levels.
”It is clear that, so far, a lot of the money that the fiscus makes available for delivery does not reach the people that we so glibly promise ‘a better life’ because we have among us too many representatives at all levels who lack honesty, integrity and courage,” he said.
By way of example, Buthelezi pointed to the corruption scandal in KwaZulu-Natal’s agriculture department.
Voters, he said, were no longer interested in ideologies and the IFP would have to address issues affecting people on the ground.
”These elections have ceased to be ideological battlegrounds. Ordinary voters are not really clued up as to who bears the label of liberal, communist or progressive.â€
He said people were more concerned about crime, HIV/Aids, unemployment and corruption.
”They are concerned about having their children educated. They are concerned about whether their families can put food on the table. These are things that concern them, not ideological labels,” he said. – Sapa