Simon Grindrod, a major figure in the Congress of the People, on Tuesday launched an attack against the party’s leadership.
”It is becoming my view that a great fraud has been perpetrated against the South African electorate and I will no longer be part of leading it,” he said in a letter to the party’s general secretary.
He was resigning as a member of Cope’s national working committee and the party’s head of elections, but remained an ordinary party member.
”After eight months of genuine effort to further the work of the party as a member of the national executive, I am now convinced that very little appetite exists to accept, let alone rectify, the very serious challenges which face the party.”
Grindrod said the party was beset by problems, ranging from leadership battles between party president Mosiuoa Lekota and his deputy Mbhazima Shilowa to party list manipulation, a culture of denialism, an inactive party website to an empty head office in central Johannesburg costing R60Â 000 a month.
He accused the party leadership of neglecting its long-term viability.
”It very much appears that Cope was, in the light of recent events, little more than an alternative vehicle for the entrenchment of key individuals who now seek to further what are ANC policies and processes by any other name.”
Cope had promised an ”agenda for hope and change for all South Africans”.
”It is becoming abundantly clear to me that hope is in decline, there is no change from ANC practices, and the only South Africans setting the agenda are current and former ANC members, to the exclusion of all others.”
Deputy president resigns
Meanwhile, the party’s second deputy president Lynda Odendaal on Tuesday resigned from both the party and Parliament.
The party’s national spokesperson, Phillip Dexter, confirmed that Odendaal had resigned, but was not in a position to go into details, because the party was still waiting for reasons for her resignation. ”We just heard about the resignation and we are busy preparing a statement,” said Dexter.
Odendaal refused to speak to the Mail & Guardian on Tuesday, referring all queries to Dexter.
She was a surprise choice for the top-level leadership of the party at Cope’s inaugural conference in Bloemfontein, a month after she joined the ANC breakaway party as a volunteer organiser. She resigned from her job as CEO at Network Support Solutions, a Sandton-based information technology company, immediately after her appointment as Cope’s deputy president in December.
Read Simon Grindrod’s resignation letter