Category Archives: Election 2014

The Abahlali/DA pact: difficult situations require difficult decisions

http://www.polity.org.za/article/the-abahlalida-pact-difficult-situations-require-difficult-decisions-2014-05-05

by Raymond Suttner

In observing the current election campaigns one is struck by the lack of debate and vacuousness of ideas circulated in order to win votes.  Silences may tell more than what is said.

Insofar as opposition parties present themselves as alternatives to the Zuma-led ANC, can they say they have addressed the most important features of that government they purport to oppose and ask us to entrust them with replacing? They have referred to some of the most glaring cases of corruption, as in Nkandla, but there has been little concern about the way in which the lives of people at a less visible, local level are affected.

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Daily News: We will vote – but not ANC: Abahlali

http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/we-will-vote-but-not-anc-abahlali-1.1681690#.U2qGCvmSzY4

Nosipho Mngoma

Durban – Shackdweller movement Abahlali Basemjondolo will be taking to the polls for the first time in its nine-year existence, in a bid to topple the ANC.

Speaking at their Unfreedom Day Rally at the Siyanda Informal Settlement in KwaMashu on Monday, president Sbu Zikode announced that the movement would abandon their No Land, No House, No Vote campaign and cast a “strategic vote” in the May 7 elections.

The movement, which boasts a membership of thousands in 84 branches around KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape, has previously boycotted elections, saying voting only gave power to those who oppressed them.

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Daily Maverick: Abahlali’s choice

http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2014-05-03-5365753498943/

Political identity is a strange thing. In the run-up to an election, we are asked – over and over again – to identify ourselves with political parties. We are asked to remember our histories and follow our family’s old allegiances. We are instructed to forget those histories, and face the future. We are expected to identify with the faces on political posters and see ourselves reflected in them. On 2 May, the shack-dwellers’ movement of South Africa, Abahlali baseMjondolo, endorsed the Democratic Alliance in this week’s upcoming provincial elections. A storm of controversy has erupted. By JULIAN BROWN.

A large percentage of South Africans are unconvinced by this, of course. The major parties seem bankrupt, devoid of new ideas. Their claims on our identities are absurd and overblown. For many of us, the choice between parties is no choice at all: it is just a matter of preferring one tone of voice, one temperament, one set of berets, and one set of unconvincing promises over another.

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An Invitation to all Political Parties except the ANC

Wednesday, 23 April 2014

Abahlali baseMjondolo press statement

 

An Invitation to all Political Parties except the ANC

 

Abahlali baseMjondolo has boycotted every election, local and national, since

2006 as part of the ‘No Land! No House! No Vote!’ campaign. We made it clear

that we were not interested in being used as ladders for any political parties

or any politicians, that we were aware that no political party is prepared to

form a genuine partnership with the poor and that no political party had a

progressive position on shack settlements.  We understood clearly that poverty

is a question of power and that we therefore had to build our own power

through organising ourselves as the strong poor and to be very careful not to

give up our power to any political party or politician (or NGO).

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