Cope vision 'hijacked'
2009-07-10 08:29
Marida Fitzpatrick
Johannesburg - Cope is a farce that has misled voters.
This is what Lynda Odendaal had to say on Thursday after she resigned as the party's second deputy president and also as member of Parliament on Tuesday.
"I can't lie to South Africa and I won't lie to myself. I think the people (who voted for Cope) will feel like I feel. I feel cheated."
The reasons for her resignation correspond precisely with the concerns and warnings detailed in a memorandum by Simon Grindrod, who resigned as Cope's national head of elections on Wednesday.
That memorandum, in which Grindrod warns, among other things, about the confusion surrounding leadership and structure problems within the party, was leaked last month.
'I was naïve'
When asked what about her current opinion of Cope, she said: "That it's a farce in terms of the intentions of the leadership."
Cope is not "the party of unity" for which Odendaal left her corporate career last year, she told Beeld on Wednesday.
"I was very naïve. I can assure you I'm not naïve any more. My eyes have been opened over the past nine months."
The Cope that made her so enthusiastic no longer exists, she says.
"Unfortunately that version of the party was hijacked."
To the question as to who "hijacked" the party, she said there are forces within and also outside the party who are driving their own agendas.
Though she doesn't say it directly, it appears as if the most damaging break in trust happened between her and Mbhazima Shilowa, Cope's first deputy president.
Odendaal and Shilowa butted heads numerous times. Once she went to see him and told him in no uncertain terms that he was the problem in the organisation.
"You persuade and manipulate. There are parallel structures at work here. I confronted him and we had quite a verbal interaction. He blatantly denied it."
Besides that, she doesn't want to talk about Shilowa much, but rather about Cope leader Mosiuoa Lekota: "Terror [Lekota] has strong leadership skills, but there are leaders under him who are weak and opportunistic."
Not running away
Odendaal considered resigning from the party earlier this year, after Mvume Dandala was chosen as the party's presidential candidate and later elected as leader of Parliament.
"The party never gave a mandate to anybody to look for another presidential candidate [other than Lekota]. You can imagine what kind scheming must have gone on behind the scenes."
She suspects her telephone conversations are being tapped. "It's actually terrifying."
Cope's leaders in Parliament are, according to her, inexperienced and unprofessional.
She doesn’t regret joining the party because she has learnt much, but "if I’' stayed and carried on lying to the country, I wouldn't be able to look at myself in the mirror anymore".
People shouldn't think she's running away, she says. "I'm standing up for what I believe is right."
Regarding her plans for the future, she says she's currently "taking stock of the political landscape".
She has already been approached by other politicians, but is not joining another party at this stage.
"I'm now looking for another platform from which to serve my country. I won't leave politics."
- Beeld