4 February 2024
Abahlali baseMjondolo press statement
The Poor Need to Vote the ANC Out in the Coming Election
Frantz Fanon said “Each generation must discover its mission, fulfil it or betray it, in relative opacity.” The challenge of our generation is to move past the ANC, to build a politics of the future, a politics by and for the oppressed, a politics committed to humanising our country and the world.
In April it will be thirty years since the end of apartheid. In that time we have watched and suffered as the promise of the new society has been betrayed by the ANC. We have witnessed corrupt leaders continuing to enrich themselves and their families at the expense of the poor majority. We have seen inequalities grow as more and more people are unemployed or precariously employed, including by labour brokers. We have watched as the ANC continues to impose devastating economic policies, including brutal austerity, on the country as more and more people are pushed into poverty and the poor get poorer. We have seen that, year after year, there has been no real rural or urban land reform. Many more people live in shacks now than at the end of apartheid. As food and transport get more and more expensive and the government cuts spending on essential public goods such as education, healthcare and social grants the crisis lived everyday by the poor gets worse and worse. Continue reading →