Cape Town - Corné Mulder has been named the FF Plus Western Cape premier candidate for the upcoming elections, over party MPL Peter Marais, who once publicly called black Africans foreigners in the Western Cape.
Mulder, who is also the party’s leader in the province and chief whip in Parliament, is the longest-serving South African MP, with more than 36 years of uninterrupted service.
According to the party, Mulder obtained his doctorate in constitutional law at the age of 26.
He is also an admitted attorney of the High Court.
“Dr Mulder has become a household name in recent years through the key role that he has played and continues to play in negotiating and creating multi-party coalitions that, for the first time in three decades, offer real hope for ousting the ANC,” said the party's spokesperson, Isabelle de Taillefer.
Mulder was recently unanimously re-elected as the party’s Western Cape provincial leader, with Gert van Niekerk and Lennit Max as deputies.
Among others, Mulder said his party would promote and develop Christian principles and values.
It would “establish a transparent and representative coalition government in the Western Cape, which will oppose and fight any attempt by the ANC and EFF and their partners to gain provincial power in the Western Cape”.
It would also ensure freedom for the people of the Western Cape: freedom from unemployment, freedom from poverty, freedom from drugs, freedom from violence and social instability, and the freedom to determine their own language and cultural values.
Mulder said his party would facilitate fair economic participation for all, including entrepreneurship and mentorship programmes, as well as funding for new businesses that would, in turn, provide jobs to local communities.
The FF Plus would “offer incentives for companies that want to relocate to the Western Cape”, he said.
It would re-establish the clothing industry and its factories in the province, and limit the importation of cheap clothing products from China. It would place the fishing industry back in the hands of local communities.
Marais, who is a former Cape Town mayor, was in the last general elections announced as the FF Plus’s Western Cape premier candidate, and he eventually won a seat in the legislature.
During a sitting in the provincial legislature, Marais made some remarks in which he referred to black Africans in the Western Cape as “foreigners”.
He called for the empowerment of coloured and Khoi emerging farmers, entrepreneurs, workers, and households on housing waiting lists.
Asked about Marais’ whereabouts and his involvement in the party, Pieter Swart, FF Plus spokesperson, said Marais was in a good spirits and still a member of the party.
Cape Argus