Durban — If a coalition, which is expected to be formed after the elections, were to put the RISE Mzansi party in charge of the KwaZulu-Natal government, the plight of single mothers would be at the top of the list of priorities.
The party’s premier candidate, Nonkululeko Hlongwane-Mhlongo, said her government would put policies in place that would alleviate single mothers’ hardships of raising children without the presence of fathers.
Until the ANC and uMkhonto weSizwe Party revealed their premier candidates, Hlongwane-Mhlongo was the only woman contesting. With first-hand experience of being raised by a single mother when her father was killed in the early nineties, she was concerned that most employed mothers would worry about picking up their children from crèches while at work. As a result, she planned to make sure that early childhood development centres, which would receive financial support from the government, open between 6am and 6pm.
“We are also talking about providing single mothers with discounts for basic household food items such as maize meal, beans and others, which we were able to buy five years ago but are now so expensive,” she said.
Hlongwane-Mhlongo said her government would also prioritise creating safe communities for single mothers and their children. The 37-year-old was born at St Aidan’s Hospital, Durban, and for the first four years of her childhood grew up in Ulundi, northern KZN, with her mother.
They later moved to Durban to settle in Newlands West, where her father was murdered on February 14, 1994, when the country was gearing up for the first democratic elections.
“A single mother then raised us, but due to a couple of community issues centred on political violence, we moved to Woodlands, which is where my family home currently is.”
Hlongwane-Mhlongo was raised in a family with no boys, so girls were tasked with cutting grass, fixing broken electric appliances and also running the household.
“That also introduced me to leadership, because I have always seen a woman (her mother) playing a leadership role in the house,” she said.
Hlongwane-Mhlongo also grew up a sports and drama activist and held leadership positions while at school.
“So leadership came naturally because I always saw my mother being a leader. So women leadership for me is not something that you hand over to women, and we don’t have to be given it, we are natural leaders” she said.
Back to elections, Hlongwane-Mhlongo said a coalition with the ANC was a “no-no” for her party. She said RISE Mzansi rejected joining the DA-led Multi-Party Charter because it did not want to limit itself when came to choosing parties it could partner with.
“The truth is that coalitions are going to be part of our lives in this country for a very long time, so it is expected that KZN would be a coalition.
“We were invited to be part of the Multi-Party Charter, and we declined because we are a new political party, which has not tested the electorate in an election, so even if we negotiate with political parties, we would be pre-empting to negotiate before elections,” she said.
She said getting into a coalition with the sole aim of removing the ANC was not a good enough reason.
“Should the ANC get below 50%, I can assure you that RISE Mzansi is not going to be a political party to get into a coalition with the ANC, because the people of this province and this country would have spoken,” she said. Hlongwane-Mhlongo studied “a bit of law” at the University of KwaZulu-Natal but dropped out in the second year because her mother could not afford tertiary expenses.
She is currently pursuing political leadership studies at Unisa.
She described herself as a community engagement strategist who founded Female President Academy, a non-profit organisation empowering women and promoting peace through civic education.
Sunday Tribune