Cape Town - Election mode is in full swing for 2019’s polls, and three new Western Cape parties are ready to slug it out with the big three of South African politics.
First to launch was the radical and outspoken group Gatvol Capetonian who have made it its goal to fight for issues affecting coloured communities.
According to the Gatvol constitution, housing is one of the pillar issues it is targeting.
It says there is a shortage of affordable housing in Cape Town, the Western and the Northern Cape and that families have been on waiting lists for decades while newcomers to the Western Cape are approved.
On unemployment, the party claims descendants of the Khoi and San people are being denied job opportunities and experiencing high unemployment due to the national government’s affirmative action policies.
Former ANC councillor Sammy Claasen also started his own party.
Disgruntled at the ANC after a racism row, Claasen started the Alliance of Indigenous & True South Africans (Aitsa). The party is led by mostly former ANC Western Cape members.
“To challenge poverty, inequality and unemployment. It calls on us to challenge the very structures, institutions, hierarchy and status quo. It calls on all of us to understand our role and that our decision making will equate to the success so desperately needed,” Claasen says.
He said decisions need to be made to change the current corrupt, incompetent and irresponsible forms of governance, the state and the economic regimes that keep communities in absolute poverty and ignorance.
“We are living in the world’s most unequal society, hence our stance and call for change. Sound decision making and understanding of how things work will bring success,” he said.
Former Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille’s party, GOOD, was launched after her fight with the DA ended.
De Lille said their mission is to attract people who subscribe to their founding values.
“GOOD is a party for men, women and, particularly, young people from any race or gender. GOOD is a party for all GOOD South Africans. GOOD calls on everyone regardless of their status or creed that this movement belongs to all of them,” De Lille said.
GOOD will be officially launched in January.
Other parties have also sprung up this year. They are the Socialist Revolutionary Workers’ Party (SRWP), and former SABC chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng’s African Content Movement.
Elections are likely to be held in May.
@JasonFelix