The Azanian People’s Organisation (AZAPO) preaches the philosophy of black emancipation and black consciousness, a philosophy popularised by Steve Biko, who was killed in police cells in 1977.
Former party president, Mosibudi Mangena, announced his resignation from Parliament on 21 May 2010, saying he was paving the way for the party’s new president, Jacob Dikobo, who was elected at AZAPO’s conference in March 2010.
Mangena has been serving as an AZAPO MP since 1999, and has been made the party’s honorary president.
Having boycotted the 1994 elections the party won one seat in the 1999 polls. Azapo’s campaign message in 2004 was premised on the notion that despite being ten years into democracy, most citizens had yet to reap any economic benefits that were brought about by political freedom. In its preface to the election manifesto, Azapo president Dr Mosibudi Mangena had cited the inequitable racial distribution of wealth as the main problem facing South Africa since 1994.The party had specifically identified the Black majority as suffering the brunt of the inequality and had argued that only with changed economic conditions of this community could South Africa truly be regarded as a democracy.
The party won two seats in 2004. But it lost a seat in the 2009 elections, to remain with just one seat in the National Assembly. – edited by Sipho Kekana
2014 Elections Manifesto
AZAPO on Electoral Campaign and Party Funding says:
In seeking to build an equal and truly democratic society, AZAPO wants to build a country of stakeholders: a country where each citizen has an equal stake in the country and equal influence in public affairs. Unless regulated, the role of money in the political process is likely to skew power and influence away from the majority to the rich and powerful. Indeed this is happening in South Africa with money from foreign entities, foreigners and the rich skewing the competitive electoral landscape.
AZAPO recognizes the right of individuals to, in the exercise of their freedom of speech and association, donate money to political parties and electoral campaign, but such funding should not give those individuals oversized influence.
AZAPO therefore proposes, in building a nation of equal stakeholders, to:
• Ban contributions or donations by foreign entities or individuals to political parties and electoral campaigns
• Restrict juristic persons to only make donations to the represented political parties’ fund managed by the Independent Electoral Fund (IEC)
• Six months before the end of term of the National Government, ban any advertising (paid for media placement) either by a juristic or natural person that seek to influence or shape public opinion on a policy, political or public affairs issue.
• Change the formula used to allocate funds to political parties from the represented political parties’ fund as follows: 50% of the fund to be distributed on an equal basis to all the represented parties, the other 50% to be distributed on the basis of proportional representation in the National Assembly.
• Require political parties to publicly declare, through the IEC, any donation or donations from an individual that amount to or exceed R50 000, adjusted for inflation each year.
• Limit an individual’s contribution to a political party or an electoral campaign to R150 000per calendar year, adjusted for inflation yearly.
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