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22 Sep, 2017
Heritage Day 2017
As the country celebrates another Heritage Month – and Heritage Day on Sunday – the United Democratic Movement (UDM) calls for ways to resolve the intolerance and conflict between South Africans, which seems to have become the norm. We face huge challenges of cultural intolerance and racism; and it is taking a toll on South Africans’ psyche. To compound an already challenging set of circumstances, it still shocks that Bell Pottinger was so recklessly used (and let itself be used) to drive racial wedges deeper into our Rainbow Nation. We must not forget that South Africans from all walks of life fought hard for our collective freedom. If we harness the same energy we used to eradicate apartheid, we can unify and let our racial diversity be an asset. We cannot afford to lose this battle, because we cannot allow the blood of our heroes and heroines to be have been spilt in vain. As we are in the celebratory mood, we need to ensure that we bring the spirit of unity amongst South Africa and Africans in general. Let us use our various backgrounds, experiences and perspectives to find solutions to the problem. It is all our responsibility to build a common set of values that bind our diverse peoples together. UDM wishes every South African a wonderful Heritage Day. Statement issued by Mr Bongani Msomi, UDM Secretary General
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09 Mar, 2016
Racial Tension and conflict at South African Universities
Address by Mr UDM Chief Whip Nqabayomzi Kwankwa, MP in the National Assembly Madame Speaker and Honourable Members, The racial strife the #AfrikaansMustFall campaign has caused and other critical issues raised by the #FeesMustFall Movement should rouse us from our deep Rainbow Nation slumber! It is clear that the majority citizens clench pent up frustrations about an economic system that marginalises them and their languages more than two decades since we attained freedom. Kenyan Author, Ngugi wa Thiong’o once shared his insight into the role of language in the historical consciousness and development of nations with these words, and I quote: “It is this aspect of language, as a collective memory-bank of a given people, which has made nations and peoples to take up arms to prevent total annihilation or assimilation of their languages, because it is tantamount to annihilating that people’s collective memory-bank of past achievements and failures which form the basis of their common identity. It is like uprooting that community from history.” End quote. The ongoing racial conflict at our universities over the use of languages can, to some extent, be viewed in this context. It is an attempt by each party to, whether rightly or wrongly, act in manner that seeks to protect and ward off an affront to its “common identity”. With our liberal Constitution, which protects all our rights, this needs not be so. It is the Constitutional right of Afrikaans students to be taught in Afrikaans – and we must respect that! Similarly, it is the Constitutional right of indigenous language speakers to be taught in the language of their choice – and that too must be respected! And no one should foist Afrikaans on our people! The nub of the problem, however, is that, two years later, we have failed to elevate the status and the use of languages of diminished use, in line with Section 6 (2) of the Constitution. We have to develop our languages into academic languages that grant their speakers equal access to power and influence. Speaker, We reject racism with the contempt it deserves. As we do so, we should remember that many students face discrimination at our tertiary institutions on a daily basis. They also have to put up with an alienating institutional culture that makes it difficult for them to acclimatise and to compete with their white counterparts. We have to compel our institutions to build an inclusive institutional culture that integrates students from diverse backgrounds in a manner that follows broad principles of representativity, receptivity and fairness. However, more broadly, the unrest at our universities is a microcosm of South Africa’s larger socio-economic problems, such as the slow pace of economic transformation, high levels of poverty and inequality among the majority citizens, which require urgent attention. We therefore cannot remain impassive in the face of their anguished cries for help! We have to roll-up our sleeves and get involved. But before we do so, our students have to commit to a disciplined, structured and nonviolent struggle that forwards their cause. History warns us against the disastrous consequences of allowing emotions to overwhelm our ability to reason. Fellow South Africans, Whatever our differences, we are all stitched together by our shared history and common destiny. We are therefore all duty-bound to help build a South Africa in which we all look forward to the sunrise of our tomorrow. I thank you.
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18 Aug, 2015
“Does South Africa Need Electoral Reform?” – Daily Dispatch Dialogue
Daily Dispatch Dialogue on – 18 August 2015, Guild Theater, East London at 18h40. TOPIC: “Does South Africa Need Electoral Reform.” By Mr Bantu Holomisa, President of the United Democratic Movement and Member of Parliament. Programme Director, Fellow Panellists and Participants, good evening. Let me from the onset, acknowledge and welcome the great and timely contribution by Mama Bam on one of the most important matter of national interest. Indeed Electoral Systems do play a significant role in the creation of a truly democratic society. Her book, “Democracy, More than Just Elections” not only provides an insight into various dimensions of her wealth of knowledge and wisdom on the workings of democracy – it also re-affirms and reinforce a clarion call that has reverberated our national discourse as far back as 2000. In this regard, we support her well-considered view that, South Africa does need an electoral regime that will encourage greater responsibility and accountability from citizens and political leaders. We hope that her voice, as it adds to others will mobilise citizens and political leader into action. In your book you said, “We all know that cynicism about politicians and their parties exists everywhere in the world, but it is more pronounced where there is no structural connection between politicians and voters. We are now a maturing democracy and should consider changing our electoral system which ushered in our heart-earned democracy. We are more self – confident, self – assured and more responsible for our own lives than to relegate our right to choose the leader of our country to card carrying members of the parties. It is time to review our electoral reform system”. Sisi Hlophe, I could not agree more with your well thought observation. Indeed Section 43 (3) of the South African Constitution states that, “the National Assembly is elected to represent the people to ensure government by the people through the Constitution”. I strongly believe that, 21 years into democracy, the participatory deliberative model of democracy should be central in the enrichment and strengthening of democratic citizenship. Political accountability is at the heart of fully-functioning democracy. The current proportional representation (PR) system means that elected leaders are accountable solely to their party bosses and not to the people who voted them into office. In addition the current practice where political parties impose their choice of president on the nation is profoundly undemocratic. Through the current system, electorate mandates a political party to govern based on its policies and manifesto. However, we have noticed that the ruling party is held at ransom from implementing its mandate because some of their allies who have not been mandated by the electorate seem to have veto powers in particular with regard to Economic Policies. This dilemma makes governance ineffective, compromise confidence of investors, jobs shading, increasing levels of poverty and result to instability. Once such situation exists, opportunistic leaders take advantage and do things that have nothing to do with the electorate’s mandate but their own interests, like the current disputed procurement of nuclear energy and many other questionable transactions such as Arm’s Deal. To make things worse these leaders become intransigent and use these MP’s who have no constituencies as voting cattle to rubber stamp their nefarious objectives. The UDM notes that a great deal of inputs from diverse and often conflicting social, economic, political, linguist and cultural communities as well as interests groups informed the decisions which were made and ultimately culminated in the Constitution we have today that has become an international benchmark. Any discussion on a new electoral system must always remind us where we come from. We should move towards a mixed electoral system that draws from the strengths of both the proportional and constituency based electoral systems. The first major step we need to take is the introduction of constituencies into the PR system to ensure that politicians have a specific geographically-defined community they represent. We also need to change the electoral laws to allow for a separately elected President, as is the case in many democracies across the globe in that way we will put the power back in the hands of the voters. However, it is important that any electoral reform process culminates in as widely inclusive manner as possible. We would do well to follow the example of many countries such as New Zealand, Ireland etc, who confirmed electoral reforms by holding referendums. In this way, every voter is consulted directly. The current electoral system risks the checks and balances that are a necessity in ensuring that the Constitutional dictates are adhered to at all material times. The research conducted by Community Agency for Social Enquiry (CASE) and release in April 2014, has made serious findings that may question the legitimacy of the election processes. Amongst others, it has found that the electorate is a subject of political intimidation through, amongst others: · Manipulation of people using misinformation and threats regarding pensions and grants; · Interfering with access to meeting facilities; · The disruption of meetings; · Assaults and threats of physical harm; and · Punishing people who associate with rival political parties through the denial of jobs, contracts, services and development opportunities. In addition, the research report concludes that, voters and electoral processes are manipulated and opposition parties are undermined through: · Fraudulent voter registration; and · The targeted use of government resources to promote parties immediately prior to elections. When last for instance did you see trucks distributing food parcels to the needy, but come elections next year you will see them often, to hood-wink the voters. The other body that causes a lot of confusion is the Demarcation Board whose mandate to draw boundaries is always done to favour the ruling party. Citizens in the meantime are also demobilised into non active and disorganised individuals, whose collective voices are only heard when they take to the streets to demand service. There is no deliberate direct involvement of the people in running their own affairs, taking charge of their own lives and freedom, with government and other development agencies as facilitators. To make things worse, some civil society organs like, unions who were supposed to be at the centre of mobilising communities into activism, are core governing with the ruling elite. During elections, some of their members become part of the IEC machinery. If you take a case of a POPCRU member who is supposed to intervene in the disruption of a political party’s elections meeting; where the ruling party is involved, such a member would certainly be compromised from discharging his or her Constitutional obligation without fair or favour. His or her ascendance to the next higher position at work, is intrinsically depended on the deployment committee of the ruling party. No member of a Cosatu affiliated union will be able to carry-out his or her work fairly and without bias and yet some of the SADTU members are presiding over voting stations and take serious decisions that influences the outcome of any election. Ballot boxes are transported from one point to the other; either by the members of POPCRU and or the Intelligence officers whose loyalty is not in doubt. The South African Electoral Commission is chosen by the ruling party using its majority in Parliament, the recent appointment is a case in point, where all other parties objected but the ruling party forced it through our throats at the expense of reasoning. These appointments cascade down to Municipal Electoral Officers (MEO) who in many if not all instances are; a municipal senior officials whose appointments to those municipalities are determined by party bosses through deployment policy. As if these and other are not enough, the companies contracted to capture IEC data are secrete, not only to the electorate but also to the political parties who participate in the elections. Whilst electoral systems in themselves do not secure deliberative participation and direct accountability to citizens, putting a face to a representation, and placing political accountability to communities through the election of identifiable individuals who are accessible between elections, would benefit South African democracy. Finally, these reforms should go beyond the system itself, but such other matters as the party-political funding and the rules and regulations needed to ensure sound, ethical party fund-raising. I thank you.
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04 Sep, 2014
UDM: Why can’t the Dalai Lama visit South Africa?
STATEMENT ISSUED BY MR BONGANI MSOMI, UDM SECRETARY GENERAL The United Democratic Movement (UDM) wants to know why the Dalai Lama is, yet again, barred from entering South Africa. Maybe it’s third time lucky? How ironic that a peaceful leader, and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, cannot visit South Africa to attend the 14th World Summit of Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, whilst we are proud of those South Africans who have been bestowed the same honour. Now we hear that other laureates will not come if the Dalai Lama is not permitted to enter the country. What a poor peace summit it will make when the host country, for some unknown reason, denies the Dalai Lama access to this international event. The rest of the world must be raising their eyebrows. The UDM believes that it is plain and simple; there is a pattern forming. Government must come clean and say why it does not want the Dalai Lama to come to South Africa. Hiding behind bureaucracy just does not cut it anymore.
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26 Apr, 1998
27 April 1994 – four years later and still no liberation
Statement by the Co-leaders of the UDM In the run-up to the 1994 elections and shortly thereafter South Africa was in a state of euphoria. Everybody was expecting a political heaven. That also set the table for the years to follow. The main expectations were that the fate of the majority would improve. Politics suddenly had a new set of rules and it was expected of existing parties to be part of a new type of politics. Soon it became clear that the promises made were unrealistic. That government could not comply with the growing spiral of expectations. On paper we have a highly acclaimed constitution, in theory South Africa was far on the road of establishing a democratic basis. However, the spirit was not adhered to. We experienced continuous racism from all sides, polarisation is growing and intimidation is a reality of our political operations. There was a clear inability to adapt the politics to fit the requirements. If we look back on the past four years we see that political parties with long histories and from a specific order were so set in their ways that leaders and supporters new only about one way to play the game. It is especially the NP and the ANC that is struggling with this. The NP inspite of having new and young leadership remains part of the old Apartheid order politics. They still think, look and act as apartheid politicians. They still think in racial terms. Their policy remains captured in the protection of a small minority’s exclusive rights. This they do at the cost of issues of national interest. The ANC is still struggling to transform from liberation movement to government. There is internal conflict on policy issues such as GEAR. This results that the ANC’s energy is focused internally and that issues of National interest suffer as a result of that. The DP remains nothing more than a small dog, barking non stop, seemingly having all the answers but totally unable to grasp the realities of South African and African politics. If one looks back on the political scene over the past four years, the one thing that does stand out is the inability of political parties to manage change and the realities that came with it. Some even took conscious decisions not to adapt to the ever-changing environment. This is where the UDM enters the scene. We are seeking for a solution, seeking to manage these changes in the interest of all in South Africa. The UDM provides hope for practical, innovative solutions. South Africans are looking for a party that can face up with reality and that is not blinded by the old set of rules. The UDM believes that politics is like an ecological system: each organism is interdependent from the next for its survival. The time for separate issues for separate interests are over, the time for racial politics have long past. Polarisation belongs to the years of apartheid. The next year that lies ahead the political temperature will rise as we move closer to the elections. We observe that in the desperate seeking of alliances amongst old order political parties. The NP, DP and the IFP realise that their survival depends on so called cooperation. The reality is that that would mean very little more than 15% support for the opposition, which would make no dent in the ANC’s force of power. Democracy is about more than just opposing the ANC – it is about bringing down the support of the ANC. The National Party and its possible alliance partners can not mobilize support away from the ANC. The only way to make sure that democracy in the country survives in South Africa is to systematically bring down the power control of the ANC. Providing the average person with a workable and creditable alternative must achieve that. This is where the UDM will play its role. Market research and the ANC’s own agenda in dealing with the UDM confirms that. The circumstances under which politics will be practiced the next 12 months will be very difficult. Old order political parties must defend their 1994 acquired positions. They will fall back on intimidation and “fear politics. The UDM is committed to democratic politics and we will guard jealously over the rights of all South Africans to freely and without fear make their political choices.
