Mercury: Rights group to launch election boycott campaign

http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=4780987

Rights group to launch election boycott campaign

January 05, 2009 Edition 1

Aziz Hartley

CAPE TOWN: The Anti Eviction Campaign, an organisation that fights for the rights of the homeless, is to launch a national campaign to boycott the coming general elections because it says the government has failed the poor and politicians cannot be trusted.

Mncedisi Twalo, a campaign leader in Gugulethu, Cape Town, said yesterday the body was using “no land, no house, no jobs – no votes” as its slogan.

“We have been talking to our alliance partners, Abhahali base Mjondolo (shack dwellers’ movement) in KwaZulu-Natal, and the Homeless People’s Movement in Gauteng.

“The campaign is going to all nine provinces. We are going out there to convince poor communities that elections are all about power-mongering and promoting politicians,” said Twalo.

“We feel, as the poor, we have been left on our own and will not participate in what is now a neo-colonialist state. We will not vote, but we will keep pressuring whoever takes up public office.”