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Maimane calls on South Africans to hold public representatives accountable

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Former Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Mmusi Maimane has called on community members to hold public representatives accountable for challenges in society.  Maimane met a handful of community activists in Chatsworth, south of Durban, on Saturday.

The aim of the meeting was to engage activists on the launch of his new movement for change. The community activists converged at a church hall in Chatsworth for Maimane’s address. After quitting the DA, Maimane has been meeting with representatives from civil society.

He is to launch his “movement” in the next two months, which he claims is not a political party.  Speaking to the SABC earlier this week, Maimane said he will not follow the conventional way of forming a political party. He said he would rather allow ordinary South Africans to decide what form his envisaged political formation should take.

Maimane’s first engagement in KwaZulu-Natal was in a community that the DA has previously enjoyed support in. However, he says he is not targeting only DA members.

“I’m mobilising South Africans who believe in non-racialism, who believe in one South Africa, who believe that in fact, we can fight for jobs, we can fight for justice, who believe that we can work together to hold our public representatives accountable. Therefore these are people from different parties. I’m not sitting here targeting one party. This is not in an offset of a political party, this is a movement for one South Africa.”

Maimane says although his political fortune is not linked to that of the former Joburg Mayor and founder of the People’s Dialogue, Herman Mashaba, they will work together. He also says he intends to work with all the people, despite their political affiliation.

“Mr Mashaba is focused now on a political party that is a project he is engaged in, with me I’m focused on building this movement in South Africa and ultimately as I’m engaging various political formations he’s more than welcome and we can work together.  We’ve already said that upfront, there’s no fight between him and I,  actually, I want for South Africans to register. I want South Africans to be part of the movement and let’s hold political systems and parties accountable and ultimately through the membership and working together with people, we  will be able to mobilise communities.”

Activist Sagren Naidoo, who was part of the engagement, says; “We as the community activists, what we want is to elect our own public representatives in our community. We want the public representatives to be accountable to the community and not the other way.”

Another activist, Nelson Subramoney says they want to see change in their communities.

“We want to see a better society, a drug-free society. We need good education, the healthcare system, everything has to fall in place. At the moment, the honest truth is, that the government is failing us.”

Maimane insists his political formation and its leadership will be dependent on the expectations of ordinary South Africans.

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