SOUTH AFRICA’S newest political party, the Congress of the People (Cope), has been badly rattled this week by the resignation of two of its most senior members.
Cope, which broke away last year from the ruling African National Congress (ANC), saw its second deputy president, Lynda Odendaal, resign from the party and parliament on Tuesday.
She was followed yesterday by Simon Grindrod, the party’s campaign manager for last April’s general election.
While Ms Odendaal has so far kept the reason for her departure to herself, Mr Grindrod has launched a scathing attack on the party, calling it a “great fraud”.
“It is becoming my view that a great fraud has been perpetrated against the South African electorate and I will no longer be part of leading it,” he said in a letter to the party’s general secretary.
The future of party, which won a credible 7.5 per cent of the vote and 30 parliamentary seats in April’s general election, was now in doubt, said Mr Grindrod, who blamed a leadership battle, party insolvency and the lack of a clear forward-looking policy as the main problems.
Speaking to local media, Mr Grindrod maintained that the party president, Mosiuoa Lekota, was being isolated and undermined by Mbhazima Shilowa, one of his two deputy leaders.
“I have yet to see any public defence of the party president by Shilowa. Shilowa is trying to defend the legacy of [former South African president Thabo] Mbeki, but he should find time to defend his own party president,” Mr Grindrod said .
“The leadership has given no reason for people to stay. Hope is dying in the cold light of day. What we’re seeing [in Cope] is what we’re seeing in the ANC.”
At the time of the ANC’s bitter succession battle between Mr Mbeki, the party president, and his deputy, Jacob Zuma, observers suggested the factionalism would drive some supporters to leave the former liberation movement.
This prediction became a reality after Mr Zuma secured the party’s leadership, as disaffected ANC members loyal to Mr Mbeki left and formed Cope last November after he was removed as South African president by the ANC.
Following Mr Grindrod’s outburst, Mr Lekota responded by insisting that the party still had an important role to play in South African politics.
“It was never wrong for us to initiate Cope,” he said. “The overwhelming positive response of the people of South Africa, from all racial groups, indicated that the mood of the country was the people felt they needed an alternative and that continues to be my experience today.”