Former members of ActionSA who resigned collectively last week are currently working on forming their own political party to run in the general elections in 2024. The former party provincial secretary Bongani Caluza confirmed this on Sunday to the Daily News. In a press conference on Friday, Caluza also announced his resignation, after the widespread resignations of the regional and subregional leaders.
He stated that he had intended to quit before the national leadership dissolved the province executive committee because he thought that they had foreseen his departure and hastened to abolish the provincial structure in order to avoid embarrassment.Caluza shared the view that the provincial system was being undermined by the national leadership.
“The party has alienated its real owners, ordinary South Africans who bought into the fake dream of a political party that will not be made up of dictators. There is no freedom in ActionSA, especially for people who are not members of the senate and those who do not have big money to sponsor the national office.”
He claimed it was challenging to work within the constraints set by the government. Nearly all of the leaders who left the party expressed their displeasure with the racism and elitism present there, claiming it was not the party of the underclass.
“It is true we are preparing to launch our own party. We have left ActionSA and we are moving forward with our plans and tomorrow we will start the process to register the party,” said Caluza.
Since only three of the PEC’s eleven regions remained after the resignations of all nine regional structures, he claimed that the national leadership’s decision to dissolve the PEC was absurd. Only the chairs of Zululand, Ilembe (KwaDukuza), and Majuba (Newcastle), according to Caluza, had not submitted their resignations.
Former eThekwini regional chairperson Busisiwe Ntshingila claimed they formed the new party because they couldn’t leave the people they were guiding behind. According to her, any party leader who left the organization took their followers with them. Since people still required their leadership, she continued, this was why it was crucial to creating a new party. In reaction to the widespread resignation, the party’s national leadership dismantled the provincial structure and chose John Moodey, the executive director, to serve as interim chairwoman until the new chairperson is chosen in October.
Michael Beaumont, the party’s national chairperson, reaffirmed Moodey’s interim appointment and stated that the party had no issue with former members starting their own party. The event went smoothly. Last year, when it ran in elections for the first time, it took home more than 10 seats among the three municipalities. A few months after the elections, the party fired Dr. Makhosi Khoza, who served as the party’s spokesperson throughout the election. The previous provincial chairperson of the party, Musa Kubheka, is still facing disciplinary action.
According to Caluza, the province had to work particularly hard to persuade people to support ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba, who he claimed had no presence there. “No one knows Mashaba here in KZN, if you’re recruiting, people are confused. ‘Who is Mashaba?’ You have to explain for 30 minutes. He has no followers so we are convincing people to join this organization without knowing the leader because Mashaba is not popular enough.”
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