Neelam Rahim – neelam@radioislam.co.za

4 min read
21 September 2022
20:05 CAT

The One South Africa Movement says voters will see the name of its leader and former DA leader Mmusi Maimane appearing again on the ballot paper when they go to the polls in 2024. This is as the movement announced that it will launch a new political vehicle on Saturday, which will appear on the ballot paper in 2024 as an umbrella body.

The spokesperson for One South Africa Movement, Mudzuli Rakhivhane, spoke to Radio Islam International. She said it is because of the crisis that South Africa is in that you can no longer sit on the political sidelines.

According to Mudzuli, the reason for this formation is for South Africans to be able to re-enfranchise themselves into the democratic project and fix what’s broken.

She said this is a continuation of work that One South Africa has been doing on amending electoral laws to have better and more accountable leadership.

It is known from last year’s elections that voter apathy exists in the country, especially amongst the youth. Mudzuli said people don’t opt out of the democratic process for no reason and a lot of voter apathy is because they don’t trust the process anymore. “Our job is to make sure we specifically recruit young people to become candidates and then secondly to make sure that the leaders that are recruited are honest and that people can trust again with power.”

The One SA will embark on a country-wide tour to go into communities and have them identify who their leaders are. After that, they will be asked to sign a pact and memorandum of understanding.

The model facilitates a process whereby communities are directly electing their leaders. Mudzuli said One SA, as an umbrella body, will ensure to put the right resources and teams behind them.

“This will ensure that they are trained, have the right campaign financing, that they ultimately get over the line and that their communities can continuously hold them accountable,” she says.

Listen below to the interview with Mufti Yusuf Moosagie and Mudzuli Rakhivhane on Radio Islam’s podcast.