‘Hotch-potch of a coalition’ no better, says ruling party veteran

ANC veteran and former United Democratic Front (UDF) stalwart Mohamed Valli Moosa says next week’s elections are about whether or not the ANC is removed from power.

He added that the former liberation movement remains the only party he will vote for because the ANC alone can take the country forward.

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He said all other parties were nothing but a “hotch-potch” coalition with nothing in common and that removing the ANC and replacing it with them would be “irresponsible” and regrettable.

Ousting the ANC was a dangerous move that will put the country and its democracy in jeopardy. Many of the other parties were not in favour of human rights, either, in South Africa or anywhere else in the world.

“So in this election I have absolutely no doubt about what I am going to do at the voting station.

“I am voting for the ANC. I will not have it on my conscience to replace the ANC with something that’s going to bring us regret,” Moosa said.

He is a former minister of environmental affairs in the Mbeki administration and President Cyril Ramaphosa’s deputy at the Convention for a Democratic South Africa in Kempton Park in the early 1990s. They replaced first ANC negotiators, Mbeki and Jacob Zuma.

Moosa is among several ANC stalwarts who have endorsed the ruling party. Most polls show it will fall far below 50% in Wednesday’s national and provincial elections.

But the ruling party is adamant it will go over the crucial winning mark and retain power when results are announced on 2 June.

Moosa, now a businessman, was part of the UDF – an umbrella body formed by anti-apartheid activists in the early 1980s, mainly to oppose the establishment of the tricameral parliament that comprised only whites, coloureds and Indians, but excluded the black majority.

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In a video clip that recently circulated on social media, Moosa said he had been asked by many people who he would vote for.

He saw this as a valid question considering his 50-year role in the struggle against apartheid.

He said the elections were about one thing only – to return the ANC to power or to replace it.

“If we remove the ANC from power, it’s completely irrespon-sible for us not to know who will replace it.

“If I look at the present political playing field, there isn’t a single party I think would do better than the ANC.”

The Democratic Alliance-led moonshot pact has spoken out against the country’s constitution and the fundamental human rights contained in the constitution, Moosa said.

“Practically, it would mean replacing the ANC with a hotchpotch of a coalition of a whole number of smaller parties, none of whom have anything in common,” Moosa said.

“They have no uniting idea, no uniting ideology, no uniting programme of action. The only thing that unites them is that they are against the ANC,” he said.

Moosa said the ANC had its faults, but its renewal programme had kicked in vigorously and the party had managed to oust the main rotten applies.