DA: Split to check power abuse

2008-10-10 07:29

Johannesburg - The formation of a breakaway party will check power abuse and anti-constitutionalism in the ANC, DA leader Helen Zille said on Thursday.

She told a public meeting in Calvinia in the Northern Cape that the ANC had started disintegrating, and this paved the way for the reconfiguration of politics in South Africa.

"This is a positive step, and will have significant implications in several provinces in the 2009 election - particularly the Western Cape and the Northern Cape."

It meant the DA was in pole position to win in the Western Cape, and the ANC was likely to lose the Northern Cape as well, Zille said.

Former defence minister Mosiuoa Lekota's planned breakaway party was likely to take many of the Northern Cape's current ANC branches and tear the party down the middle in that province.

Strengthening constitutional democracy

"A coalition of opposition parties is likely to govern the Northern Cape after the election in 2009," said Zille.

"The imminent formation of a breakaway party will act as an important check on power abuse and anti-constitutionalism in the ruling party.

"And it will help to reduce the ANC's 74% majority in Parliament, thus strengthening constitutional democracy."

The paradigm of a strong, dominant ruling party and a fragmented opposition - characteristic of societies undergoing a transition from liberation politics to constitutional democracy - was beginning to shift.

- SAPA