COPE poised to be surprise package in Atlantis

By Gert Witbooi

The Congress of the People (COPE) is slowly starting to establish itself as a force to be reckoned with in wards 32 and 29; and is poised to be the surprise package come 22 April.

Ward 32 consists of (the eastern) part of Atlantis, an informal settlement Witsand and some farms in the adjacent Saxonwold community. Ward 29 consists of (the western) part of Atlantis, Pella and Mamre. The latter two were Moravian Church Missionary Stations.

On Sunday 29 March, Western Cape Premier Candidate Dr Allan Boesak visited the town, starting with a church service in Mamre in the morning; a visit to a farm community; door-to-door canvassing of some homes; and ending the day with a public meeting in the afternoon attended by about 300 people. He was accompanied by Hennie Smith (who plays the character Bertie in the soapie Egoli), Nick Koornhof and Avril Harding.

The attendance figure may not be what we have hoped for, but is nevertheless significant given that we did not have any posters to advertise the meeting, and could print very few pamphlets. We had a team of twelve members that visited and distributed pamphlets in about 300 homes.

Cope has attracted widespread support from the community, including from among teachers, professionals and workers. The first members meeting in January this year was attended by 23 members. A month later 52 members attended.

Today we have a total registered membership of almost 500. The challenge, though, is to convert the signed up members into paid-up members (less than 50 are paid-up), and build a strong organizational base, with a credible election machinery that can challenge for power.

Although we do not have access to the kind of resources other parties have, we were able to raise funds for an election office and some equipment. We have an Interim Executive structure, and it consists of former members of various political parties.

In the space of only two months, though, COPE distributed pamphlets and canvassed door-to-door in about 600 homes in both Mamre and Atlantis, as well as at four shopping complexes, making contact with between 5 and 10,000 voters. We have on display 120 posters in strategic areas. Very prominent and respect members of the community also publicly endorsed COPE in a local newspaper advert.

At the public meeting on Sunday, members of the community complained about lack of housing in Mamre, school fees, crime and opportunities for young people. Dr Boesak noted that the current government has lost its focus and is not giving enough attention to the community.

Atlantis has been a lot in the news lately because of massive retrenchments from various factories, and most recently because of the drug turf war and gang violence. Four people have been shot dead because of what police believe to be gang-related activities.

A major source of embarrassment for young people is the DA’s intention to close down a Youth Service Centre located in the Dura Flats, and convert it into a drug rehabilitation centre. The centre is in the middle of two major drug dens. Local youth organizations feel the rehabilitation centre should be located outside of the town.

My confidence in the IEC has been demolished

Last Saturday I was disturbed from my chores by two ANC election foot soldiers, a lady and a guy, both in their late thirties or early forties. They demanded, in a stern voice, to know if I stayed in the house. When I answered in the positive the lady asked. “According to our papers there are two people who are registered to vote in this house.” I was amazed. How could they know that? Only the IEC should have that information. “How would you know that?” I asked, perplexed. “That does not matter,” chipped in the guy. “Are you Mphuthumi Ntabeni?” I was flabbergasted.

After that we went into little detail about the issues the ANC is putting on the table to convince us to vote for it to power again, chief of which was the cutting of water to people’s home by the City of Cape Town. I agreed with them that cutting people’s water is unconstitutional, and contrary to the promise of bringing basic lives with dignity to people. But my following questions caught them off guard. I asked why were they acting as if they were an opposition party. After all the ANC has been governing this province for sometime now, under whom the City of Cape Town cut people’s water.

If the ANC Provincial government was effective and efficient, I told them when they made to object, it could have found ways and means to stop the City of Cape Town, under the DA as they emphatically pointed out. Surely had the provincial government decided, say, to take the City of Cape Town to court, they would have won the case and saved a lot of people from unnecessary dire straits. I put it to them. “This thing points to the inefficiencies of the ANC government.” I told them. “Though your organisation has good intentions and policies most of the time, it is unable to implement and monitor them, because it puts unqualified deployed people to positions of civil duty. As a voter I no longer trust it.”

In the end they agreed with me and left with a promise that things are now going to be different. I wish I could believe that but I don’t. “I’ve heard your promises before, and frankly am a little cloyed with them.” Nothing is as impossible to surmount as inability. The truth of the matter, with the good it has done, the ANC government has reached its limits of delivery. That’s why it has been going in circles since 2006 when it reached the limits of its abilities. It’s time to pass the baton.

They gave me two pamphlets, one from the ANC and another from the SACP. The ANC one was titled ‘Stop Cutting off people’s water’. It talked about how the DA “Over three years since they have been in power in the City of Cape [sic] the DA has shown they provide services to the rich, not to the poor townships. Zille DA says supporters pay the taxes for government to support the poor. This is not true – everybody pays VAT taxes and it is the sweat of workers that contributes to company profits.”

In a bullet form the pamphlet put three Stop points, which included cutting basic services, evicting people “from Government-owned rental housing if they are unable to pay due to financial problems.” And:

• Stop neglecting to maintain sewerage systems and roads, and leaving rubbish to pile up in the streets in poor areas.

I share their indignation on the last issue. It’s still fresh on my mind how Madame Zille critically called on Jacob Zuma to come and look how people in the Vaal were made to live with sewerage bubbling on their streets. My thinking was, does she need to go to the Vaal for that? I can show her several places in the townships of Cape Town under her administration with similar problems. The hypocrisy of it all gets my goat.

PRESS RELEASE

COPE is indeed participating in two by-elections in Cape Town under its own banner. On Wednesday, when the elections will take place, COPE will be just 99 days old. Even so, in all of the municipal elections that have taken place so far, COPE has won several seats and has been able to get 30% electoral support, on average, with minimal resources. This is consistent with our province wide direct surveys which show that three out of ten people support COPE. In Ward 2, which is out and out DA territory, COPE will get an opportunity to gauge how the mainly white community will be responding to the party’s appeal to South Africans to join with it to create a truly united and non-racial South Africa. In Ward 79 COPE will test its strength relative to the DA, ID and the ANC in a mainly coloured community. The results of these elections will be instructive but they cannot be extrapolated to the provincial and national elections as different imperatives will apply there.

Farouk Cassim
COPE PROVINCIAL ELECTIONS MANAGER