Sharpeville: South Africa will have an opportunity to restore human rights next year

21 March 2023

Following our first democratic elections in 1994, South Africa adopted a constitution founded on human rights and dignity for all South Africans. Next year, as we commemorate three decades of democratic government, we will do so with nearly 12 million South Africans without jobs, and approximately 25 million citizens dependent on some form of social support in South Africa.

The ANC government has failed to provide a better life for all and abandoned the promise of our Constitution of an inclusive and prosperous future for our country. We cannot accept this.

The 2024 elections offer South Africans the best possible opportunity to replace the corrupt and dysfunctional ANC with an ethical coalition government that will reignite the promise of 1994 and restore the basic human rights the victims of the 1960 Sharpeville massacre fought for.

As I commemorated Human Rights Day in Sharpeville alongside Lerato Ngobeni, National Spokesperson, Funzi Ngobeni, Gauteng Provincial Chairperson, Mothobi Nqhatsetseng, Sedibeng Regional Chairperson, and hundreds of ActionSA activists, I shared how 29 years since democracy arrived, the dreams of those who fought for it have not been achieved.

For too long, the ANC-led government has slowly eroded the gains made since the 1994 elections and has infringed on the rights of South Africans by neglecting our public infrastructure such as railways and roads, delivering unreliable electricity, and supplying deteriorating quality of water.

The people who fought so bravely for our democracy would not be happy with the state of Sharpeville today with its drug problems and poverty. Neither would they be happy with the state of South Africa, and we have to fight to achieve their dreams for a better South Africa.

But, ActionSA believes that violent protest, disruption and destruction are not the answer to removing the ANC. Instead, South Africans should make use of the democratic right to free and fair elections that so many before us fought for to kick the ANC into the dustbin of history.

Those brave men and women who fought against apartheid in Sharpeville in 1960 did not have the same rights that a constitutional democracy offers today, and therefore they couldn’t make their voices heard through the ballot box.

As a party committed to ethical governance and social justice, ActionSA honours the victims of the Sharpeville massacre and recommits ourselves to fighting for their dreams of a prosperous, equal and fair South Africa.

A better South Africa is possible, but only once the ANC is removed from power – and ActionSA will work tirelessly to achieve that better future for all.

Issued by Herman Mashaba, ActionSA leader, 22 March 2023