It began in a bakery. Mbhazima Shilowa tells
Mandy Rossouw and Mmanaledi Mataboge about his kickstart plans for a new party
Why a convention? Why not start a new political party from the beginning?
It’s important to have a dialogue of South Africans across the political divide, to see if we have a shared perspective. That doesn’t mean it’s an election platform that will become the party’s policies. But it’s important to say we believe in the rule of law and equality before the law; that we’re going to ensure these are protected.
All political parties say they believe in job creation; the difference is what are you going to do to ensure job creation? At the convention a different kind of person will be participating. Because you have a broad spectrum of people you can have a discussion about founding principles and policies. We’ll set up a new website after the convention. I don’t want it to be simply ANC mark 2 even in leadership and membership, I want it to be much broader. It will give South Africans an opportunity to dialogue.
[United Democratic Movement leader] Bantu Holomisa has been consistent in calling for a convention. [Former] president Mbeki said Parliament should take the call by Bantu seriously. Patricia de Lille has been calling for a convention on crime. Conventions for South Africans to dialogue are very important.
Why do so many people support the movement while not declaring themselves publicly?
What would it achieve? The ANC is saying: ‘Look, this is a party of former NEC members,’ while we have a broad section of new people coming in this direction. I don’t want to give credence to the notion that this party is just the old NEC. I don’t want people to come out; I want them to do work. They will emerge at the right time. We want to project a modern party suited to the situation that can talk to South Africans. People are asking when is the big bang, but there isn’t one.
Some in the ANC say the idea of a new party predates the recalling of Mbeki.
It’s very easy to say this decision has been long in the making and people have been meeting. Let them produce the facts. I’m sure people must have met to say this is what is happening in Limpopo — how can we respond? Where you had the things [former ANC Western Cape secretary] Mblulelo [Ncedana] and others felt were happening, they would meet. But they wouldn’t have met to discuss the formation of a new party.
Some of us don’t feel at home and feel that we need to branch out. When Terror was on radio I said I’ll approach him. Because you say you have served divorce papers, can I take custody? I met Terror; we drove to Fournos in Fourways. He explained why it was important that people should not resign. I said, “Let me apply my mind to it.”
Then I met the ANC leadership in the province and said I’ve come to a determination that I was going to resign and that I may look at a new [political] home.
When will the new name be decided?
Once the discussions in the provinces reveal a new name. Also I would prefer that we reveal the new name once we’ve submitted the registration to the IEC. I had to fend off a lot of cyber-squatters so I’m very guarded about this.
How important is trade union support for the new movement?
First you need the support and participation of the union movement in any convention that seeks to take stock of where we are in terms of implementing our Constitution, in trying to develop a shared perspective among South Africans. You don’t need your own labour federation for workers to vote for you.
It’s less about who the unions politically support; it’s more about how we ensure there are no anti-democratic tendencies, like the statement of the Chemical Workers’ Union that said: “We will monitor our members to ensure they don’t attend the meetings of Lekota and Shilowa.”
Unions have no business monitoring the political movements of their members. They have the business of organising workers to mobilise them around social and economic issues. Those members have a democratic right enshrined in the Constitution to belong to the political party of their choice, which might not be the one the federation attends. There are Cosatu members of the IFP and UDM.
Former NP leader Inus Aucamp has declared his support for you. What do you make of this?
We want to put together a non-racial movement, so yes, some of our support will come from white members and we will go out of our way to work to ensure that as many white people as possible support our movement. It’s very important because you don’t only want to replicate the ANC. You may say that from a voting perspective whites are a minority, but we are breaking new ground in terms of membership.
Secondly, we want to ensure that we break new ground among professionals, young and black. Young people feel disengaged; we want to ensure we reach them. I can only marvel at what has been happening — we’ve received over 400 offers of volunteers. These are not your ordinary unemployed men and women; they are young professionals, black and white, who say we want to come and man your IT system. I want them to become founder members of the organisation.