ACDP's Additional Comments on Joint Press Statement SONA 2013

During a Joint Opposition Party Media Briefing today at Parliament the DA leader read a joint statement and all parties present made additional comments.

The ACDP said: "South Africa faces many challenges and for the ACDP
• unemployment is not the least of these. We note that the President spoke about R3 billion for Youth subsidies and ask the question - 'Is this in addition to the previous amount of R5 billion that he spoke about or is it just a revised R2 billion less'?
• On the subject of wage subsidies, the ACDP would like to have heard something about assistance for farmers who will face crippling challenges as they face the impact of the much needed increased minimum wage for farm workers. Agriculture and the farming sector are very important in terms of the South African economy and for food security.
• We would have liked to have heard more in terms of solutions with regard to Land issues. We know plenty of land is available and the value of this land must be fairly assessed - we note that a directorate to value property was previously referred to but was not mentioned yesterday. The insecurity and negative feelings created by the constant threat of losing land works against productivity and stifles necessary investment - impacting negatively on everyone in South Africa.
• We would have expected the President to, at the very least, suspend spending on Nkandla until the reports are made public.
• We are also concerned by the Presidents reference to solidarity with Palestine and censoring of Israel while ignoring the many other conflict situations globally. This policy continues to alienate Israel and work against much needed peace in the middle East.
These are just some of our present concerns in addition to the joint statement made".

NOTE: What stood out for me in today's meeting was the fact that the strongest argument for the ACDP to commit to this opposition party co-operation is that it is a demonstration by opposition parties of their commitment to co-operating and forming a coalition government when the ANC get less than 50% of the vote.

This gives the country a strong alternative without requiring people to compromise what they believe - as they can choose to vote for the party that truly represents them and will bring that particular perspective to the table in a governing coalition.

We saw very recently in the Elections in Israel that the electorate, very interestingly, took their vote from the strongest coalition partners and strengthened the smaller parties so that these parties, true to their convictions would bring the necessary balance and perspective as decisions are taken down the road.

It was made quite clear today that while the DA and COPE would like to see parties working as one at the next election - they are open to the fact that some opposition parties would remain in co-operation rather than coalition and that the election campaign would still be one of " a vote for any of the co-operating opposition parties is a vote for a responsible coalition government".

The pro's and cons of these things will need to be considered by the ACDP as a broader body fairly urgently.