IFP gets raw deal - Buthelezi

2008-08-23 12:21

Durban - Compelling reasons will need to be provided by the Inkatha Freedom Party to ensure that voters support it, Mangosuthu Buthelezi said at the opening of the party's 33rd annual conference in Ulundi.

Speaking at the official opening late on Friday night, Buthelezi said: "Today and during this Conference we all have to look at the reasons why voters should support us with their votes as IFP in the forthcoming election. If we do not provide a compelling answer to that question then we are already doomed!"

Buthelezi said the party had a short time to hit the campaign trail in a bid to earn votes at the 2009 election.

"I know that of all opposition parties that the IFP is the party that operates against most odds."

Buthelezi said that apart from getting a raw deal from "certain hostile sections of the media" he also pointed to analysts who, while providing their opinion of the IFP, were "activists of the ruling party masquerading as political analysts."

The IFP's national congress which officially opened on Friday evening will continue until Sunday and has the theme "Honesty, Integrity and Courage."

In his opening address, he said that while there were billions of rands in the public coffers, it had not improved the lives of ordinary South Africans.

"The point I wish to make upfront is that the availability of these billions could have made a better life for the poorest of the poor were it not for the fact that Honesty, Integrity and Courage are rare commodities that are not in abundance amongst us, as representatives of the people at all these levels.

"It is clear that so far a lot of the money that the fiscus makes available for delivery does not reach the people that we so glibly promise 'a better life' because we have amongst us too many representatives at all levels who lack honesty, integrity and courage," he said.

Buthelezi pointed to the ongoing corruption scandal in the KwaZulu-Natal agriculture department.

Voters, he said were no longer interested in ideologies and that the IFP would have to address issues affecting people on the ground if it wanted to succeed in the forthcoming election.

"These elections have ceased to be ideological battle-grounds. Ordinary voters are not really clued up as to who bears the label of Liberal, Communist or Progressive.

People are concerned about crime, HIV/Aids, unemployment, corruption, etc.

"They are concerned about having their children educated. They are concerned about whether their families can put food on the table. These are things that concern them not ideological labels," he said.

- SAPA