Allan Boesak accused the ANC of keeping silent while he wrongly went to jail for helping the liberation struggle as he hit the campaign trail for Cope on Sunday.
”I went to prison because of money I used for the struggle,” he told about 1 000 supporters in Paarl on Sunday.
”The ANC knows but they do not have the courage to say it. I say to you that there is a God in heaven who will see to it that the truth comes out.”
Boesak was flanked by Cope chairperson Mbazima Shilowa, who also told the crowd that Cope’s candidate for premier of the Western Cape took the fall for the ANC when he was jailed for fraud and theft of donor funds in 1999.
”They know the story and they have yet to tell it.”
Shilowa paid lavish tribute to Boesak, who on Friday agreed to accept the party’s nomination after turning it down amid reports that Cope’s first choice was Stellenbosch University rector Russel Botman.
”He [Boesak] is my brother, he is my leader, he is a friend, he is a colleague, he is somebody who we, in the Congress of the People, believe in.” said Shilowa.
Shilowa warned Boesak that running for premier against Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille would not be easy.
”You may be vilified,” he said, ”You must stand firm.”
Boesak, in vintage style, brought the crowd to its feet with a speech in which he continually accused the ANC of betraying voters’ dreams.
”Fifteen years of disappointment is too long, fifteen years is too long to walk on broken promises,” Boesak said. ”We look around and we see that our basic rights are still abused and our dignity is still
denied.
”Poverty has become the scourge of our people.”
He accused the ANC of sowing racial discord in the Western Cape.
”We feel the pain of betrayal here more in the Western Cape than in any other provinces. The ANC made it into little ethnic groups. We stopped meeting and knowing each other, but those days are over.”
Boesak said the DA had fared no better than the ANC.
”I am sorry, but the DA has made no difference to the lives of our people.”
Boesak joined Cope in December but reports soon followed that he did so only after fruitless negotiations with the ANC in which he demanded
a top posting abroad in return for his support.
On Sunday, he denied that turning to Cope had been a cynical step.
”I believe in my heart in what Cope stands for and I believe that we have the potential to take the Western Cape,” he said, prompting several supporters to shout: ”That’s our premier!”
With the ANC in the province in disarray, the Western Cape is expected to be a tense race.
Zille announced that she would be the DA candidate for premier of the province and Independent Democrats leader Patricia De Lille also threw her hat into the ring.
The opposition leader said it was strategically more important for her to try and turn the Western Cape into a showcase for a DA government than to take a seat in Parliament.
Zille said she was unfazed about running against the charismatic Boesak.
He rose to prominence in the 1980s as a churchman and a leader of the anti-apartheid United Democratic Front. In 2000, he served a brief
jail sentence in 2000 after being convicted of fraud and theft of over R1,5-million of donor funds.
He was later pardoned by former president Thabo Mbeki. – Sapa