In a scathing attack on the ANC, DA leader Helen Zille has accused the ruling party of using its policy discussion document on a second transition, or the push for realising socio-economic rights, as a “con trick” to change the constitution.
She was addressing nearly 800 delegates at the Gauteng provincial congress yesterday, where John Moodey, member of the Gauteng legislature, was named the new provincial DA chairman.
“Don’t be fooled by the soothing enticing sounds of a second transition. It is all about changing the constitution to scrap (provisions) protecting you from power abuse,” Zille charged.
She confirmed afterwards that “exposing” what really was behind the ANC’s talk of a second transition was key to the DA’s 2014 election campaign – for which a national plan was already in place, with efforts to draw up provincial plans currently under way.
“We have to expose it for what it is – Orwellian double-think,” Zille said, adding there was no need to change the constitution. “They already can do everything they want to.”
Following his election yesterday, Moodey promised the DA would “take the fight to the ANC, and come 2014 we are going to govern Gauteng”.
He accepted the “awesome responsibility” of leading the fight, but said he would not be able to do it alone.
It is understood his win over DA MP Ian Ollis was convincing, on the back of the numerically-strong Johannesburg South region, which includes Soweto, and youth votes.
Outgoing DA provincial leader Janet Semple said the DA’s voting support had increased from some 900 000 votes in the 2009 election to well over a million in last year’s local government election.
“We got more votes than the Western Cape,” she said. “We are on the edge of breakthrough in the two most important cities in the country.”
Both contenders for the provincial leadership campaigned on winning Gauteng for the party in 2014 – and pulling Gauteng from the shadow of the Western Cape, considering the number of members and contribution to the party coffers.
Earlier, Zille told delegates the ANC was looking for a scapegoat for its failure to deliver as the government. It wanted to thus change the constitution, even though the country’s supreme law already imposed a duty on the government to “progressively realise” socio-economic rights like housing, healthcare, land reform and education.
Brandishing a copy of the 1996 constitution, she said this was the most important document anyone could have.
“The only thing that will stop them (the ANC) is if enough people stand up and defend our constitution together,” Zille said.
Her comments come after the ANC last week released its 10 discussion documents in the run-up to its June policy conference. Controversially, part of clause 195 of the draft document on the second transition, which talked about changing the constitution to relook at powers of, for example, the Reserve Bank and other issues regarded as an impediment for the realisation of socio-economic rights, disappeared in the final publicly-released document.
Zille also took the chance to boast about the Western Cape’s performance, saying the province stood out at the cabinet lekgotla, scoring 98 percent in resolving matters raised through the presidential hotline, while other provinces sat in the 20 or 30 percent region
. - Weekend Argus