South African Rainbow Alliance (SARA) president Colleen Makhubela speaking at The Star's Political Dialogue held at the Joburg Theatre ahead of the elections on May 29. Picture: Itumeleng English/ Independent Newspapers
If women do not wake up and take positions of power and leadership, they will continue to be used by male-led political parties like nothing more than a cheap commodity.
These were scathing remarks made by South African Rainbow Alliance (SARA) president Colleen Makhubela at The Star’s political dialogue held at the Joburg Theatre on Wednesday.
Makhubela said what South Africans had to understand was that the country’s democracy was one that was run by money and people with influence.
She said her party, however, was the only party that had come up not just with hype but were coming with practical policies and funded not by the elite but dependent on themselves and their members.
“We may look and feel like them but we are not like them. There’s no Oppenheimer or Stellenbosch that is funding this party, it’s our blood, sweat and our members.
“When we stand here and talk to you there is no ANC as some quarters allege that is backing us hence, we are able to stand up here and be able to tell the truth of what is happening in this nation,” she said.
Unlike other parties vying for a seat in Parliament, Makhubela said SARA was established to represent the marginalised, first of whom were the women of this nation who had been taken for granted for too long even though they were the majority.
The SARA president said given that women represented the highest number of voters, logic should have been that a black woman should have been president, however, that had not been the case as women had sold out to become fronts for men and white people.
“None of the women who spoke here can stand up here, and say this is my party. I’m pushing these policies I have thought of that I have seen will address the nation or needs of the people, no a man must tell them what to say, a white funder must tell them how to say it.”
She added: “We’re the only party that can rise up and say if you vote for SARA you are getting Colleen unencumbered, you are getting SARA with all our 160 merit-based, God-fearing candidates that we have put up for Parliament, who have a plan.”
And while Makhubela agreed that the country needed new leaders, she stressed that there would be no point of bringing in new people with no practical or tangible plan on how to turn things around.
“So we are the only party that says, women if you do not wake up you will continue to be used by all these political parties.
You look at all these political parties and rallies who is campaigning? Black women, like a cheap commodity. We’re the ones on the streets dancing for the men and yet we’re the highest unemployed and can’t afford sanitary pads.”
The Star
goitsemang.matlhabe@inl.co.za