Former KZN ActionSA members form a new breakaway liberal party

Former ActionSA members in KwaZulu-Natal have started their own breakaway liberal political party — Activists South Africa (ASA).

“If you’re an activist, involved in your community, aware of the status quo and want to do something about it then it’s time to come together and let’s do our own thing,” said Busi Ntshingila, ASA’s provincial chairperson during an interview with The Witness.

Ntshingila is a former eThekwini regional chairperson of Action SA and resigned in July after growing disillusioned with the party leadership and likening it to the ANC.

Her time with ActionSA was her first foray into the world of politics in the country.

I was a volunteer for a very long time. I never wanted to be in it because with politics you lose your life and I have a young son.

However, I understand a lot more now than I did before. As regional chairperson [of ActionSA] I thought I would have a say in what happened in eThekwini but I had zero say and I thought that’s why our country is not working. We cannot have people who work on the ground and when it comes to decision-making they have zero say.

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One of the core principles of the party, Ntshingila said, would be to prioritise the views and opinions of activists in their respective communities as they usually know better.

Ntshingila said ASA is mainly made up of former ActionSA members, but there are also people from other political parties.

The party launched on Saturday in Durban after meeting the required threshold from the IEC of 1 000 registered members for the establishment of a political party.

Ntshingila said the formulation of this party has been in the works since August.

There were people who resigned from Action SA before me but after my resignation a lot of people resigned thereafter. Then people started calling me and said we liked your style and how you conducted yourself and showed support for me.

Following a flurry of resignations, in August ActionSA disbanded its KZN executive committee.

Despite resigning under acrimonious circumstances, Ntshingila said she holds no ill-will against ActionSA or its leadership, who she said taught her a lot.

“What I learned from ActionSA is that you can build something from nothing. We built ActionSA in KZN with no resources.

Ntshingila said many of the members in ASA had strong community ties and they needed an outlet to continue their groundwork.

We’re not here to tell you how bad other parties are, we want solutions. You are going to see a different style of politics where we don’t talk about other people but how we can fix our communities.
We are liberals and we also want to take care of people over 35. People want better lives and telling them how bad things are without providing solutions doesn’t work anymore.

Ntshingila said ASA is self-funded by its members who are predominantly based in KZN.

She said they are going to be competing in the 2024 general elections and have set themselves a modest target of a minimum of five seats in the KZN legislature.

“I thought with politics you needed millions to start a party when all you have to do is go on the ground,” she said.

We need more people from SA saying I love my community and I am willing to stand up for it and I assure that in 10 years our country will look very different.