'PAC scared of PAM'
Xolani Mbanjwa
January 28 2009 at 09:27AM
Splinter party the Pan Africanist Movement of Azania claims it will
capture more than 1 percent of the vote.
The month-old party, which broke away from the PAC, said in Midrand on
Tuesday it would launch its election manifesto in Bloemfontein on February
28.
PAM secretary-general Clarence Mayekiso rubbished comments by the PAC's
Mfanelo Skwatsha, who said on a TV programme on Sunday that PAM had yet to
be registered with the Independent Electoral Commission.
Mayekiso said their registration was announced by the IEC on December 23.
"PAM believes this is a deliberate programme to confuse and demoralise
voters because the PAC is scared that PAM will do better in this election
than the 1 percent the PAC has been consistently getting.
"The fact of the matter is that the PAC raised an objection with the IEC,
claiming that PAM is a PAC creation, which the IEC rejected, and
provisionally registered PAM until the appeals process has been cleared,"
said Mayekiso.
Most PAM followers are from the PAC.
A leadership dispute in 2007 split the PAC into two factions, one backing
PAC president Letlapa Mphahlele and the other supporting Thami ka
Plaatjie, who is now PAM president.
PAM deputy president Philemon Tefo, a PAC member for 47 years and one of
the first Robben Island political prisoners, said the party's election
manifesto would focus on education, land rights and poverty, among other
issues.
Tefo said PAM was formed because Mphahlele had suspended the PAC's
constitution and its national executive committee, and began ruling by
decree in 2007.
He accused the PAC of "throwing away" the African Nation Building
Programme of Action (ANBPA) of 1949, which was contained in the
constitution and was the main bone of contention that led to the party's
split from the ANC in the 1950s.
The PAM manifesto would be drawn up around the issues of the ANBPA, he said.
The party plans to hold provincial congresses in the Eastern and Western
Cape, Gauteng and KwaZulu Natal to elect its provincial leadership.
Women and youth wings will be formally elected, along with its national
leadership, at a conference in March.
This article was originally published on page 6 of The Star on January 27,
2009
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