Minor parties form coalition

Five opposition parties have formed a coalition with the aim of giving voters an alternative to the dominance of the ANC and the DA.

Yesterday, the five parties - the Congress of the People (Cope), the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP), the United Christian Democratic Party, the Inkatha Freedom Party and the Freedom Front Plus - formed an alliance called Collective for Democracy in preparation for next year's national elections.

Negotiations between opposition parties recently resulted in the identification of 20 priorities for the coalition.

The parties will contest elections individually but within the framework of the Collective for Democracy. Each party will retain its own identity.

The parties have agreed that there will be no poaching of members.

The five parties have 57 seats in parliament; the DA has 67. Most seats, 264, are held by the ANC. The rest are held by other opposition parties.

Cheryllyn Dudley, an ACDP MP, said: "The ANC and the DA are driving people apart. [The collective] will counteract that and try to remind people that, if we are going to do this [provide an alternative to the big parties], we have to do it together."

Cope leader Mosiuoa Lekota said parties not part of the coalition were still negotiating with their constituencies about joining or were dealing with other internal issues.

The DA, the African People's Convention and the Minority Front, which were part of an earlier coalition, had decided to pull out.

"This is the nucleus. The other parties as they solve their problems can then join . The door remains wide open for any opposition political party that feels it wants to bind itself to these commitments," Lekota said.

Political analyst Professor Shadrack Gutto said it was good that the opposition parties were talking to each other and had identified the problems that faced the country. He said the parties should focus their energies on strategies to win votes as a collective.

"It is not only about the manifesto; it's also about the practical strategies [for getting] votes. I do not think enough thought has gone into the strategy that will get them the votes so that, as a coalition, they have more votes than they had before," he said

"You have to ask if the strategy will win votes. Will it add to the strength of the coalition overall and to the strength of the members of that coalition?"