The Minorities of South Africa (MOSA) aligning themselves with the African National Congress (ANC) during last week’s voting process for the leadership of eThekwini, has cost the party its Bluff candidate, Dr Duncan Du Bois.
The party-hopping veteran politician and historian joined MOSA in August after ditching the Freedom Front Plus (FF+) for not meeting his ideals. He was MOSA’s candidate for Ward 66 in the Local Government Elections. On Friday, 26 November, he resigned from MOSA, stating that the party had side-stepped its principles to align themselves with the ANC.
He said: “I joined MOSA because, among other issues, they claimed to endorse the principle of merit as opposed to affirmative action and were opposed to B-BBEE. Thus I am gobsmacked and disgusted that they have decided to facilitate the ANC’s continued misgovernment of Durban. As a party fundamentally dedicated to minorities, it should be unthinkable for MOSA to align itself with the architect of all that ails minorities in this country.”
Dr Du Bois said the reasons the MOSA leadership gave for its decision constituted an utter betrayal of its fundamental policies. “When questioned as to why MOSA has thrown in its lot with the ANC, the main nonsense excuse it came up with is that it is against its principles to be in a coalition with the DA because that would, somehow, put it on the same side as the EFF which is intent on removing ‘Die Stem’ from the national anthem. According to MOSA chairman, Ronnie Veeran, compared with the EFF, the ANC is the ‘lesser of two evils’.”
He added: “The other reason MOSA gave for its ANC alignment was that certain DA councillors had been very poor in serving their wards. Such reasoning is ludicrous when it is common knowledge that ratepayer service by ANC councillors is mostly non-existent. So according to the MOSA brains trust, it is more honourable to prop up the ANC in its corruption, cadre deployment, marginalisation of minorities, land expropriation and socialism than opposing all by siding with the DA with whom, until now, it certainly had more in common.”
MOSA party leader, Ronnie Veeran, said they were sad to loose such a “valuable member” like Dr Du Bois. “But you can’t resign every time that you do not like a decision made. We are a collective, you have to abide by the decisions made.” Veeran said.
He confirmed that the decision to enter into a coalition with the ANC came from head office and that they had to tow the line. “We had no choice, the decision came from national and we had to abide by it. It was either vote with the ANC or the EFF coalition, which was not going happen. We had to do what was good for eThekwini, the DA and the IFP was not going to reach the majority. You cannot allow every decision that you do not agree with to cause you to resign.We are part of a team. Democracy means the rule of the majority over the minority, you just have to accept the decisions,” Veeran added.
