ANC's monopoly on funding is hardly democratic, Gwede: iLIVE

27 February 2013 - 02:07 By Kgetsa a Gosebo Thulare, by e-mail
subscribe Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package.
Subscribe now
Dr Mamphela Ramphele, the founder of an organisation called AGANG taking place at Melrose Estate.
Dr Mamphela Ramphele, the founder of an organisation called AGANG taking place at Melrose Estate.
Image: MOELETSI MABE

The ANC's response to Mamphela Ramphele's party, as voiced by Gwede Mantashe, is a threat to democracy.

US funders to political formations in Africa, and South Africa in particular, do so, according to Mantashe, with the sole intention of destabilising the "strong democratic governments".

How pathetic coming from the mouth of someone who, just a few years back, was critical of Robert Mugabe for espousing the same sentiment regarding the funding of the opposition MDC. This is contemptuous double-speak.

If South Africa had never experienced internecine intra-party violence, one would dismiss such a statement as laughable.

Given the said history, however, this statement has to be condemned by all right-thinking and patriotic South Africans.

The ANC is the last organisation that should complain about political funding from the US because it cannot tell the world that it has not received funding from the US at some point.

If political parties do not go outside for funding, where can they go, as the ANC expects all local businesses to back it? If anyone is destabilising the government, it is the ANC itself.

To begin with, thanks to its majority in parliament, the ANC approved legislation on funding that favours it more than any other party. In the most recent general election, the ANC received more than R40-million from state coffers thanks to the Electoral Funding Act, while so-called smaller parties - like the United Democratic Movement, the Azanian People's Organisation and the Pan Africanist Congress - had to share a mere R4-million.

The ANC has received millions from benefactors and the beneficiaries of its government tenders. For instance, Robert Gumede of Gijima contributed R10-million to the coffers of the ANC election machinery. The list goes on.

I urge South Africans of all races, classes and creeds to curtail the ANC's power at the next elections. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Voting for the ANC will leave us with a dictatorship.

subscribe Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package.
Subscribe now