FF+ compares itself to BMF

Freedom Front Plus says the reasons given for the Black Management Forum's (BMF) departure from Business Unity SA (Busa) mirrors the experience of minority groups in South Africa.

"It is regularly pointed out that Afrikaners and other minorities do not have a say in the affairs of the country precisely because they cannot form a majority within a simplistic democratic system," said FF Plus parliamentary spokesman Anton Alberts in a statement.

"The BMF knows exactly what it feels like to be at the receiving end of the tyranny of the majority in a system where no provision is made for minority rights."

He said the BMF's decision to withdraw from Busa because the latter lacks a black voice "speaks of double standards".

The BMF said on Monday that of the around 50 organisations making up Busa, only ten votes went to black business.

This meant the "black business voice is permanently outnumbered and suppressed".

Alberts suggested the BMF take a new approach by asking for a country where the majority recognises minority rights at a political level.

"Given the black majority's obsession with demographic representation on all levels of society, it is according to the FF Plus merely logical and reasonable that minorities should also have a permanent quota on all levels of government."

He said "the BMF should not complain if the democratic principle, which they use to take away Afrikaners and other minorities' right to decide their own political future, also starts working to their own detriment in another forum such as Busa".