12 January 2024 – 21:20 By MFUNDO MKHIZE
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President of Act Ace Magashile during his party’s campaign in Pietermaritzburg.
Image: SANDILE NDLOVU
Former ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule on Friday said his party, the African Congress for Transformation, had joined forces with the Jacob Zuma-backed uMkhonto weSizwe and other “like-minded” parties ahead of the 2024 general elections.
“We are going to work with uMkhonto weSizwe. We have been engaging with other radical, progressive parties to ensure that in 2024 South Africa changes for the better,” he said.
“It’s going to be a pleasure to work with uBaba Msholozi, uMkhonto weSizwe and bring back the dignity of the black person and South Africans.”
Magashule was speaking in Pietermaritzburg on Friday as ACT kick-started its three-day awareness campaign in KwaZulu-Natal.
The former Free State premier poured cold water on the possibility of ACT merging with other parties before the upcoming elections, saying ACT was its “own distinct party” and confirming it will contest the elections independently.
“We have registered with the IEC, we’re going to be on the ballot contesting elections as ACT.”
He added they were on a nationwide campaign and that KwaZulu-Natal was one of the provinces where they were increasing their visibility.
“We’re throughout South Africa. We are not just, as people say ‘in the Free State’. We’re done with the Free State, North West and the Northern Cape. We’re present, seriously so, in Gauteng, the Eastern Cape and we’re in KZN,” he said.
“We want to make sure that we work and we prioritise blacks in general and Africans in particular. We don’t talk, we act.”
We want to make sure that we work and we prioritise blacks in general and Africans in particular. We don’t talk, we act
Ace Magashule, leader of ACT party
A long term Zuma ally, Magashule said the formation of MK party did not come as a shock to him as he had been aware of its possible establishment.
He added Zuma had a right to association, like other former ANC members who had gone on to establish political parties including Julius Malema and Bantu Holomisa who founded the EFF and UDM, respectively.
“It’s democracy. It’s maturing. South African people must have a choice.”
He praised Zuma’s term as president of the country. He said Zuma began the implementation of free quality education that was promised in 1994, prioritised rural development and the rural economy and introduced long-term planning via Vision2030.
“There was no nine wasted years. Zuma was one of the best presidents.”
He said Zuma was branded as corrupt to get rid of him.
He criticised the ANC, saying it needed “mental consciousness” and that people should not allow themselves to be “deceived and lied to” about certain people being corrupt.
The ruling party had strayed from what it was in previous years, he said.
“I’m saying the ANC of today is different from that of yesteryear. It is no longer caring about black people. It is privatising state-owned institutions … and borrowing money from the IMF and World Bank. So for generations to come we’re going to live in debt.”
He didn’t delve on other parties that they’re forming a “strategic alliance” with but confirmed they were parties who share their “values and ideology” of opposing retrenchments and privatisation of state-owned entities and defined the DA as their “ideological enemy”.
TimesLIVE
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