AGANG SA on Saturday announced it has endorsed GOOD for the May 29 national and provincial elections and will actively encourage its members and supporters to cast their votes for Patricia de Lille’s party on the national, regional and provincial ballots.
GOOD secretary general Brett Herron and AGANG SA president Andries Tlouamma, in a joint statement, said Tlouamma had encouraged his party members not to abstain from voting, but to support GOOD.
Speaking to nearly 1 000 AGANG SA members in Mandela Hall, Hammanskraal, on Saturday, Tlouamma encouraged members and supporters not to sit the election out, but to turn out in their numbers for GOOD.
He told the packed hall that a number of parties had approached AGANG SA for its support. The party’s leadership and members ultimately identified most closely with the values and policies of GOOD, and its focus on ending the daily suffering experienced by millions of South Africans.
Herron said Saturday's public meeting was the second in two weeks to which GOOD was invited to address AGANG SA members.
Herron addressed both public meetings and “shared GOOD’s commitment to a just and fair South Africa“.
“The country’s efforts to provide redress for the injustices of the past had fallen terribly short. That millions of South Africans still suffered radical deprivation and exclusion, as they did before the first democratic election 30 years ago, was the so-called new South Africa’s original sin,” he said.
Herron said GOOD was very grateful to AGANG SA and was asking voters to lend the party their vote, and hold elected representatives accountable.
He said if GOOD did not deliver, they should be voted out.
In 2014, then AGANG SA leader Dr Mamphela Ramphele and Helen Zille attempted to merge their parties, but this was short-lived, with Zille claiming Ramphele "reneged" on the agreement.
Zille said Ramphele reneged on the agreement that she stand as the DA's presidential candidate, and that AGANG SA's branches, members and volunteers be incorporated into the DA.
Ramphele had posted a formal statement on the AGANG SA website opposing the joint statement, and claiming she would not be accepting DA membership.
The Mercury