In The second half of 2008 the South African national Congress was held at the Sandton Convention centre. The day is still clear in my head. For the majority of my life i respected and loved the ANC for what the movement had achieved. I viewed them as the greatest political party of all time. However the more I learnt and the more i understood it became clear to me that the ANC had been taken over by money motivated thugs. The final straw for me was the conference in Polokwane where massive figure heads were sidelined by a faction with money.
Therefore when looking back at the SANC or "SHIKOTA" it gave me great hope as a South African and reignited my passion and love for politics. COPE could not have asked for a better start. Our party received over 1million vote in the election after only 4 months of being and official party. Unfortunately it all stopped there.
Our party has been marred by infighting, which recently has turned very ugly. We one again come to see that money is the main influence. A perfect example would be that of the tender granted to Malusi Booi by Mbazima Shilowa. Incidents such as these are purely ANC politics. Something we have hoped to wash our hands of.
In addition, we see leaders such as Anele Mda behaving no better than Julius Malema and in some instances even worse. It is clear that she is protected by Shilowa and she can get away with her actions. Another leader is John Ngcebetsha who constantly mouths off against Terror Lekota and perpetually defends Shilowa's thuggery. It needs to be made clear that Mluleki George is the Father-in-Law of John Ngcebetsha and to me is the clear cause of all this unnecessary lobbying that is ruining this party.
Furthermore, I would like to express my disappointment to the party for pushing Phillip Dexters 20/20 VISION document aside. This is one of the only, if not the only policy document that has been produced. I feel that because Mr Dexter has passed this document on his own accord, he has been sidelined. This is a document that needs to be adopted by the party, but instead the Shilowa camp wish to silence Dexter any chance they get. What a pity that they would rather fight than move forward.
The Shilowa camp is filled with ANC thugs that wish only to chase money. I encourage they shape up or ship out.
The Shilowa camp has tried to destroy this party, whilst the Lekota camp has focused on creating a opposition party. NOT AN OPPOSITION WITHIN IT!
Joel Goldberg is a member of COPE Student Movement - Wits University. He writes in his personal capacity.
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