Publications
Partners
ON A bright February morning last year in Johannesburg, a few journalists gathered in Constitutional Hill in a symbolic section called the Women’s Gaol.
They had come to hear Dr Mamphela Ramphele, a 68-year-old prominent academic and political activist from the 1970s.
On that day she launched her opposition party Agang SA, saying among other things that the current electoral system denied South Africans the right to govern which had prompted her new party to fight to change this.
The emergence of rampant corruption during the reign of President Jacob Zuma had encouraged her to turn herself from an armchair critic of the ruling party into what looked like the only credible voice to enter opposition politics at the time.
Africans, Indians and Coloureds who did not want to vote for the Democratic Alliance or the ANC were excited at the thought of having found a new political home in Agang.
But Ramphele’s chances of winning this year’s general elections were palpably slim, because she faced the ANC giant.
Even so, many thought she could shake the ANC from its comfort zone. Hopes pinned on her were extremely high.
But on Tuesday, South Africans woke up to the shocking news that she is going to lead the DA in its ongoing battles against the ANC at the forthcoming polls.
It turned out she has agreed to be the DA’s presidential candidate for the April/May polls.
Agang will now become one with the DA, a party Ramphele had condemned in the past, but which is the most robust and well-funded of the different competing political splinter groups. It runs the vital Western Cape Province.
I don't think she had forgotten that people who joined her new party hated the DA with all their hearts; she is too intelligent for that. The question that remains to be answered is: why would she want to collaborate with the DA, which is reviled by members of her party?
Agang supporters blame the DA for allegedly sidelining African and Coloured people in the Western Cape.
Black consciousness (BC) has always been an integral part of her political thinking. Of course, she is a former partner of Steve Biko, the anti-apartheid BC hero who died 36 years ago.
So does she now think that the DA has the interests of Africans and Coloured people at heart? If she plans to change the DA from within, how is she going to do that without costing the DA white votes?
Since its launch last year, it seems Agang was unsuccessful in trying to gain new supporters, and it has been battling to get financial backing. This makes me think that she deliberately abandoned the sinking ship.
Agang could have had a grand plan of action, but that was not visible enough. Unlike Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), Agang hardly made news.
It was not joined by high-profile people like the EFF, and its campaigns were also not as cleverly planned.
Malema’s masterstroke was building a house for a homeless family that lived next to Zuma’s Nkandla homestead, built at a cost of more than R200m.
This move showed South Africans that EFF was not resting on its laurels but was strategising all the way.
By the looks of things, Agang was muscled out by the EFF because the hullabaloo around the launch of Agang died as soon as the EFF was registered as a party.
It is clear that Agang as a party will not exist again. It will serve its members well to look for a new political home.
No doubt the EFF, which is hell-bent on giving the ANC a good run for its money, will welcome them.
- Fin24
*Mzwandile Jacks is a freelance journalist. Opinions expressed are his own.
They had come to hear Dr Mamphela Ramphele, a 68-year-old prominent academic and political activist from the 1970s.
On that day she launched her opposition party Agang SA, saying among other things that the current electoral system denied South Africans the right to govern which had prompted her new party to fight to change this.
The emergence of rampant corruption during the reign of President Jacob Zuma had encouraged her to turn herself from an armchair critic of the ruling party into what looked like the only credible voice to enter opposition politics at the time.
Africans, Indians and Coloureds who did not want to vote for the Democratic Alliance or the ANC were excited at the thought of having found a new political home in Agang.
But Ramphele’s chances of winning this year’s general elections were palpably slim, because she faced the ANC giant.
Even so, many thought she could shake the ANC from its comfort zone. Hopes pinned on her were extremely high.
But on Tuesday, South Africans woke up to the shocking news that she is going to lead the DA in its ongoing battles against the ANC at the forthcoming polls.
It turned out she has agreed to be the DA’s presidential candidate for the April/May polls.
Agang will now become one with the DA, a party Ramphele had condemned in the past, but which is the most robust and well-funded of the different competing political splinter groups. It runs the vital Western Cape Province.
I don't think she had forgotten that people who joined her new party hated the DA with all their hearts; she is too intelligent for that. The question that remains to be answered is: why would she want to collaborate with the DA, which is reviled by members of her party?
Agang supporters blame the DA for allegedly sidelining African and Coloured people in the Western Cape.
Black consciousness (BC) has always been an integral part of her political thinking. Of course, she is a former partner of Steve Biko, the anti-apartheid BC hero who died 36 years ago.
So does she now think that the DA has the interests of Africans and Coloured people at heart? If she plans to change the DA from within, how is she going to do that without costing the DA white votes?
Since its launch last year, it seems Agang was unsuccessful in trying to gain new supporters, and it has been battling to get financial backing. This makes me think that she deliberately abandoned the sinking ship.
Agang could have had a grand plan of action, but that was not visible enough. Unlike Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), Agang hardly made news.
It was not joined by high-profile people like the EFF, and its campaigns were also not as cleverly planned.
Malema’s masterstroke was building a house for a homeless family that lived next to Zuma’s Nkandla homestead, built at a cost of more than R200m.
This move showed South Africans that EFF was not resting on its laurels but was strategising all the way.
By the looks of things, Agang was muscled out by the EFF because the hullabaloo around the launch of Agang died as soon as the EFF was registered as a party.
It is clear that Agang as a party will not exist again. It will serve its members well to look for a new political home.
No doubt the EFF, which is hell-bent on giving the ANC a good run for its money, will welcome them.
- Fin24
*Mzwandile Jacks is a freelance journalist. Opinions expressed are his own.
