Cape must secede from SA - new party

Published Mar 25, 2009

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By Lindsay Dentlinger

THE radical plan of seceding the Western Cape from the rest of South Africa is the thrust of the new Cape Party, which will be contesting the provincial elections for the first time in April.

But before that the party, led by 25-year-old actor Jack Miller, got to test its support base at the ballot box for the first time today when it contested a by-election in Mitchells Plain.

Cape Party candidate Richard Stephenson, the party's number two on its provincial candidate list, was hoping to outrun bigger and more established parties such as the ANC, DA and ID, to win the Mitchells Plain ward.

Miller said the vision was for the Cape to return to being an independent state as it was prior to 1910, so as to protect and advance the "Cape nation".

Miller said the people of the Cape were culturally different from the rest of South Africa with a unique identity.

The ANC government had racist policies which did not benefit the province, Miller alleged. These included black economic empowerment, affirmative action and housing allocation policies.

Miller said more than 70 percent of people in the Cape belonged to a racial group that was being discriminated against through these policies.

The party has a membership base of little more than a thousand and focuses its campaigns on the youth, particularly those in coloured areas.

The party has registered nine candidates to represent it in the provincial legislature.

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