Mandela’s former adviser’s new party launches its campaign

DEMOCRATIC South Africa’s first president Nelson Mandela’s former security advisor has formed a new political party, which has launched its campaign for the November 1 local elections.

United Independent Movement (UIM) leader Neil de Beer is standing as a mayoral candidate for Cape Town.

De Beer, who was born in nearby Stellenbosch, has his eyes set on the Cape Town metro as he feels that the hard work begins at home first.

“Today is a historic day for the UIM because since 5pm, we are contesting 46 municipalities, eight metros and 1 000 wards,” he said.

“In this city alone, we will be contesting all 116 wards of Cape Town metro city. There was a decision made that if I want to be the president of this country … I should participate in solving my own city’s problems first.”

The party kicked off its manifesto launch in Mpumalanga province two weeks ago.

De Beer said key targets for the UIM included fighting crime by getting the community involved; throttling corruption and regaining capital to improve the lives of the poor.

He said Cape Town was called the Mother City because “it takes nine months to make a decision to help the poor”.

“This was not Mandela’s dream,” De Beer added.

Coalitions, he said, would be considered, but with parties excluding the ANC and the EFF.

“You will not get me to sit with them. We will never ever form a coalition with them. They are the reason we are where we are today,” De Beer said.

Fatima Abdool is the party’s vice-president, De Beer said, adding: “The UIM will not count the women in the UIM. We will make the women count. Some political parties have women because they want to be ‘politically correct’, but when they are in they don’t make the women count.”

He said that during a recent campaign visit to Khayelitsha, a man in the community had summarised the state of politics in the country.

“During our visit … a Rastafarian approached me and said, ‘Comrade, we know who you are. We don’t want freedom, we want freeness’. That man encapsulated politics in this country,” said De Beer. |