COPE President Mosiuoa Lekota's New Year's Message

As this year comes to a close our focus is on those South African men and women who voted COPE into the national and provincial legislatures of our country in the last elections, as well as in those councils where we have won by-elections. Many are no doubt unhappy with its performance and uncertain about its future.

This is because for the better part of this year our attention and energies were consumed by internal wrangling over grounding the party on its founding principles. This bitter struggle with those bent on doing politics through patronage and even corruption in the party, appeared to make issues of community and public concern less of a priority.

This was a necessary and vital phase for the party to pass through, because COPE is a very young party. And  without a sound foundation of both principle and policy, the party would NOT have deserved and won the confidence of South Africans. Consequently, its future would have been in deep doubt.

But this responsibility could still have been carried out without neglecting our responsibilities in the national discourse on political, social, economic, etc issues affecting the lives of South Africans. For this and other shortcomings we owe the voters and supporters of our party a profound apology. And I duly tender such an apology on behalf of the leadership of the Congress of the People.

Despite these challenges, the morale of most of our members is high, their resolve strong and their commitment to the ideals, values and vision of the party unshaken. We will make it up to all of these committed COPE supporters and democrats in general by dealing with this errant tendency decisively.

At a more general level, 2010 has been a year of both highs and lows. The World Cup was hosted in our country and we all as South Africans, did ourselves proud. Government officials, the private sector, workers and fans all contributed to showcasing our country. South Africa continues to be an important citizen in the global community and especially on our continent of Africa.

We must ensure that we do more to contribute to development, peace and prosperity for all. For this to happen, we must deal with the challenges we face as a country. At the level of government we have not seen the kind of leadership that our country deserves to ensure that development, jobs and opportunities are maximised for our people. At local government level, services are still so poor in many parts of the country as to be virtually non-existent.

The menace of corruption has reared its ugly head time and again and unfortunately the government of the day is either unwilling or unable to deal effectively with it. Its preoccupation with muzzling journalists, limiting the freedom of people to speak and in protecting those in its ranks who have done wrong things has literally paralysed it.

From the side of the Congress of the People, we accept that these are some of the challenges that we need to deal with as a political party. Our resolve in the coming year is to:

• Ensure that we consolidate COPE as a strong, corruption free party with a vision shared by all its members to work hard to bring about the change South African citizens deserve. To this end we remain committed to holding a democratic, transparent elective congress free of membership credential manipulation, violence and intimidation
• Prepare an election manifesto to present to the country that will inspire hope, mobilise communities for change and ensure that we field good men and women as candidates for local government.
• Continue to recruit members to COPE and build our branches to ensure that we mobilise all the progressive forces i our country to lead them to fight for development, opportunities, and end to poverty and to a safe, secure and fulfiled life for all.
• In the councils, provincial legislatures and in Parliament, ensure that our public representatives work harder to hold the government of the day to account and to represent those 1,3 million South Africans that voted us into office.
• In Africa and the world continue to build the contacts and networks that we need to contribute to the dialogue about the future of our continent and our planet. Whether at the level of the environment, the economy and in the political and community spheres, we will ensure that we make a positive contribution as a political party.

We wish all South Africans, our members and supporters, a peaceful, fulfilling and positive 2011. Let this be a year of working harder for hope and for change to consolidate our hard won freedom and democracy!

M.G.P. Lekota

President, COPE

Statement issued by COPE, December 31 2010

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