Why I Left The ANC To Join EFF: Adv Dali Mpofu Many people, particularly in middle class circles have been asking why I left the African National Congress to join the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), and in the many radio and television interviews I did, I made my point very clearly. The short answer and one of the key reasons is that the ANC in Mangaung for the first time since the mid-50’s abandoned the Freedom Charter in favour of a wishy-washy programme called the National Development Plan or NDP Vision 2030. The minimum demands of our people contained in the Charter now only find refuge in the programme mapped out by the EFF throughout my participation and membership of the ANC, I was made to believe that the Movement’s programme is attainment of the Freedom Charter objectives. The ANC Constitution and Declarations which members sign before they join the ANC, commit them to pursuit of Freedom Charter objectives. From 1958, all ANC Constitutions have re-affirmed the Freedom Charter as a central political and ideological programme of the ANC. Since 1991, the ANC compels all its members to sign a declaration upon joining the organisation to solemnly declare to “abide by the aims and objectives of the ANC as set out in the Constitution and the Freedom Charter”. What this means is that all members of the ANC currently, joined the ANC to amongst other things, fulfil the principles of the Freedom Charter, not to embrace cheap imitations of it. I am highlighting the Freedom Charter because it is supposedly the essence of all ANC policies, particularly on economic transformation; and it is evidently not central to all ANC policies, particularly the NDP Vision 2030. I am highlighting the Freedom Charter because it was Exhibit 1 in the Treason Trial where leaders of the Liberation Movement were litigated by the apartheid regime. I am highlighting the Freedom Charter because all political developments that happened post its adoption by the Congress of the People in 1955 and by the ANC Conference in 1956, including the banning of all revolutionary movements, imprisonment of political, the State sponsored assassinations and massacres happened because the ANC now had a vision called the Freedom Charter. It was part of the DNA of the ANC I joined. Despite many attempts to distort the Freedom Charter, it calls for the land to be shared amongst those who work it. The Freedom Charter says “Restrictions of land ownership on a racial basis shall be ended, and all the land re-divided amongst those who work it to banish famine and land hunger”. The current Constitutional framework and political direction of the ANC government has not done anything on the land question, despite the reality that more than 50% of South Africans are on the dangerous side of food insecurity. Section 25 (5) of the Constitution compels the state to pass an Expropriation Act (a process which only requires 50% + 1 of Parliament) by taking reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to foster conditions which enable citizens to gain access to land on an equitable basis. 20 years after taking political power, the ANC has not used its political and parliamentary majority to pass an Expropriation Act. It has existed in the form of a stagnant Bill for many years now. The reason why the ANC has not done so is inexplicable except on the basis that does not see fit to prioritize enabling the landless to gain access to land on an equitable basis, and as shown in the National Development Plan Vision 2030, it has no plans to do so. The legitimate aspirations of our people now only find refuge in the programme mapped put by the EFF. Massive land hunger is not only a socio-economic problem of the landless masses, but a political and security issue for all South Africans, which if not addressed adequately will lead to intensified social conflicts. It is also foolhardy and a historic to declare the cut off point for land redistribution at 1913 but that is a topic which needs a separate article. The Freedom Charter also calls for the mineral wealth beneath the soil, banks and monopoly industry to be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole. This is important because whoever is in ownership of these critical sectors will determine the politics of the day. In South Africa, these critical economic resources are in the hands of Capital, and Capital calls the shots (literally and figuratively). The State is nothing but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole ruling class. The ANC is only committed to the Freedom Charter in rhetoric, but there is not a single policy position in the ANC government which aims fully to implement the Freedom Charter. The many actions of the South African State and political authorities reflect that the ANC in government is there to secure the interests of the haves, and not of the people. If the ANC held the people’s interests at heart, it would by now have done the following: •Abolished labour brokers, because it is very difficult to enforce workers’ rights as contained in the Labour Relations Act on workers employed though labour brokers, and they are generally super-exploited. •Found a different mechanism to expand and improve roads in Gauteng, instead of the universally unpopular user-pay model which will impoverish many sectors of the middle class, who live on shoe string budgets and need modest cars to travel to/fro work because public transport is not efficient. •Found a more cogent mechanisms to attract industrial investors into the South African economy to employ the youth, and avoid tax incentives to existing companies, which as will be proven soon, will retrench unsubsidized workers in favour of those subsidised by the State. •Been consistent on the question of tackling corruption, because while some of the actions and expenses of the State and its leaders might not be legalistically wrong, they are ethically unjustifiable in a South Africa with so much poverty. Any corruption is abhorrent but public sector corruption is theft from the people as a whole. Now, the EFF is the only political formation which brings to the table cogent, understandable and practical alternatives to the status quo. Of course, mainstream media and sections of society are hard at work to trivialise the political and economic plan of EFF because of narrow class and unfortunately racial prejudices. Hence the vitriolic cartoons and racial caricatures betraying the general and understandable pandemonium and panic among the noisy classes about the emergence of the EFF. The EFF’s commitment and dedication to land expropriation without compensation is not something which this new economic emancipation movement says should happen outside the confines of our Constitution. The EFF’s reasons for land expropriation as provided for is its Founding Manifesto are to me perfectly sound, particularly the stated intention to guarantee food security and avoidance of food imports which South Africans can produce. Nor is the policy aimed at “grabbing “land from anyone outside the confines of the law. There is too much state owned and other land eligible for redistribution before one can focus exclusively on privately owned land, which cannot be exempt. South Africa must conduct a land audit, which is long overdue. The EFF’s commitment to provision of free quality education until undergraduate level is also a persuasive alternative, in particularly its intention to create a scholarship which will send a minimum of 10 000 students to the best Universities across the world to gain skills, education and expertise. These are noble objectives and plans, which are elementary to any successful nation. The country is well endowed with natural resources to fund these programmes for the next 100 years when these resources get depleted, as they sure will one day the industrialization of the country should be at levels where depending on primary commodities would have been severely reduced. The EFF’s commitment to massively expand the post secondary education and training quantitative and qualitative capacity is a noble objective, because as things stand, South African post-secondary education and training institutions cannot absorb, for instance, the 700 000 students writing their Senior National certificate in 2013. The EFF’s commitment to building State capacity to perform and fulfil its own functions (avoiding tenders), and the commitment to protected industrial development are a sign that EFF is a 21st Century emancipation movement which understands that political power without economic emancipation is meaningless. The tender system must be abolished because it is an inherent invitation for the entrenchment of corrupt tendencies as “the new normal.” As a way forward, EFF should be a rallying point of all progressive professionals, academic and other experts and Experts who want to change South Africa for the better. Implementation of the NDP Vision 2030 will not bring about any significant change, but will retain the vestiges of apartheid inequalities, poverty and unemployment. In 1969, the ANC 1st National Consultative Conference adopted a Strategy & Tactics which said, “In our country - more than in any other part of the oppressed world - it is inconceivable for liberation to have meaning without a return of the wealth of the land to the people as a whole. It is therefore a fundamental feature of our strategy that victory must embrace more than formal political democracy. To allow the existing economic forces to retain their interests intact is to feed the root of racial supremacy and does not represent even the shadow of liberation ”. In 2013, it is only the EFF which understands this notion and our pursuit of economic freedom in our lifetime is the only sustainable solution. Since the two documents are clearly incompatible and are premised in diametrically opposed ideological department point the adopting of the NDP in Mangaung marked the clearest evidential confirmation of the abandonment of the minimum demands contained in the Freedom Charter and the permanent disappearance of any residual hopes of a left wing trajectory for South Africa under the rule of the ANC. As a person who remains a proponent of the trajectory or agenda I did not leave the ANC, the ANC left me. I was left stranded by being stripped of the ticket in the journey towards economic freedom, the Freedom Charter. If we in the EFF are wrong in steadfastly holding these beliefs and views, as we may well are, then let the citizenry and the electorate pronounce so by no casting as single vote in our favour. The, I guarantee, we will fold up and stop annoying people from their false and short lived comfort zones. Then, the complex historical economic disparities threatening the very epicentre of our country can safely entrusted to the supposedly omni-potent “invisible hand” of Adam Smith and its concomitant “trickle-down effect”. In that eventuality and without wishing to spoil the celebratory party which will surely accompany our blushing departure from the political scene, we hope we would be allowed one warning and parting shot ”Be afraid, be very afraid……….” Adv Dali Mpofu
Posted on: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 11:48:05 +0000
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