Cape Town - With the launch of yet another new political party targeting voters in the run-up to the 2024 national and provincial elections, a political scientist says South Africa is drifting towards coalition governments and smaller parties will be looking to make a difference.
CPUT political science lecturer Dr Trust Matsilele was speaking as former legislature speaker Masizole Mnqasela launched his new party, the Alliance of Citizens for Change (ACC), with an eye on the 2024 election.
Matsilele said: “I think it’s evident South Africa is drifting towards coalition governments and this will become pervasive as we progress.
“So smaller parties will increasingly see their voices growing, it’s within that context where we are going to see these small new players making a difference.”
He said pluralism in liberal democracies was always a welcome development and citizens should be given opportunities to choose from the many parties at the ballot.
“The entry of a new party isn’t shocking considering that when you expel a career politician he or she will likely join another party or form a new one like we see with Mnqasela.”
Speaking at the launch held at the historic Rocklands Civic Centre where 40 years ago the United Democratic Front (UDF) was launched, Mnqasela said the reason for launching his party at the venue was that the ACC wanted to emulate the values and principles of the UDF.
Mnqasela said he had spent 20 years in the DA trying to change it from within without success.
Mnqasela, who was the first to sign the party’s membership register and to pay the R10 membership fee and a pledge, said the ACC would be honest and ethical.
He said the ACC would deliver a government “with a heart to care for society’s most vulnerable”.
T-shirts and caps bearing the party logo, Mnqasela’s portrait and its mission and the 2024 election, were distributed to the roughly 400 people who had gathered for the event.
Speeches were made by the new party leaders from each of the provinces including by Western Cape representative Junade Hussain and former deputy junior mayor of the City of Cape Town Alessio Marcus.
The party’s logo is a kudu with the South African flag tattooed on its ears against a royal purple background.
