Cape Town - Former Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba on Friday said he had launched a platform for dialogue and social change because he had lost faith in the political system.
"Today, I have launched The People’s Dialogue, a platform to engage South Africans from all walks of life about how we can build a South Africa that we can all be proud of," said Mashaba, who resigned from the main opposition Democratic Alliance and the mayoralty in late October after falling out with the party.
"Like many South Africans, I have lost faith in our political system."
He expressed his dismay around the election of his successor as Johannesburg mayor this week, along with upheaval in the Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay metros.
A vote of no-confidence in Tshwane mayor Stevens Mokgalapa saw the DA lose control of all three metros it had wrestled from the ruling African National Congress in 2016 municipal elections. The vote came a day after the ANC's Geoff Makhubo was elected as the new mayor of Johannesburg.
Mashaba said Johannesburg now had a mayor who was "allegedly corrupt", instead of one who fought corruption.
"Through all of this, I have come to the view that political parties and politicians operate with self-interest as their primary driver of decision making, and not in the interest of ordinary South Africans," he said.
During his term as mayor he had met countless South Africans who wanted to live in a country that works but felt they were held back from making that a reality by the current political system, Mashaba said, adding he would now engage with like-minded people on his new platform on social media.
"While we will start slowly over the month of December, it will pick up speed in January 2020 when we begin to engage on the solutions to our biggest challenges. Solutions put forward by ordinary South Africans," he said.
%%%twitter https://twitter.com/hashtag/SASpeaks?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SASpeaks pic.twitter.com/zfL0hgUM5m
— Herman Mashaba (@HermanMashaba)
"I will only have one rule in leading this discussion – as South Africans we must engage one another with respect for our great diversity of views and solutions ... The People’s Dialogue must return the belief and hope for a better future, one shaped by its people.
"We can no longer leave our future, as a people, to our political system. We have to be animated by a love of our Country and by a belief that we can fix South Africa," he added.