Thabo Mbeki: Something has gone wrong with political parties
Carien du Plessis @carienduplessis #AfricanUnity 23 May 2014 9:00
Former president Thabo Mbeki has bemoaned the state of political parties in
Africa, saying something has gone wrong because leaders wanted positions
to serve their own pockets.
Speaking at a conference on African solutions to African problems organised
by the Human Sciences Research Council in Pretoria last night, Mbeki said
the leaders of liberation movements fought against corruption and could
speak about it, but this wasnt true of political parties today.
Answers dont come from political parties, they come from somewhere else.
[Parties] pretend that it comes from them.
They would talk about being servants of the people. Because in the end, you
could get shot and get killed, you are not in the liberation movement
because of a position, but it puts you in the first line of fire, he said.
He asked if there were any political parties that could really say they
served the people, because leaders tended to get into positions to line
their own pockets.
Although he spoke with some scepticism of NGOs that are funded from outside
the continent, Mbeki said the pan-African civil society movements should be
revived.
He said the answers to African problems would come from an intelligentsia,
which could look critically at what has happened, but the demobilisation
of many of the pan-Africanist civil society movements on the continent
pointed to a problem.
Once, we had a very strong and vibrant all-African students movement with
affiliates, he said.
The pan-African youth movement, similar, where is it? The pan-African
womens organisation; why have all these organisations disappeared? Your
organisation of African trade union movements, I dont see it, I dont hear
of it, why?
Even bodies like the all-Africa conference of churches, why is it not
there? What is it that happened that has led to this layer of continental
progressive organisations to disappear?
We have got to reactivate our trade unions and womens organisations, he
said.
The conference is set to continue into the weekend and culminate in Africa
Day celebrations tomorrow and on Sunday.
EM
On the 49th Parallel
Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni and Dr. Kiiza Besigye Uganda is in anarchy"
Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni na Dk. Kiiza Besigye Uganda ni katika machafuko"
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