Mashaba joins the DA: 'Unchain our people and be politically free'
The businessman and founder of Black Like Me says he voted ANC in the past and has now publicly joined the Democratic Alliance, telling young South Africans it is their patriotic duty to vote a party out when it does not perform.
Herman Mashaba has publicly joined the Democratic Alliance, announcing the move in a message addressed to South Africans and, above all, to the country’s young people.
Mashaba is an entrepreneur and businessman and the founder of Black Like Me. He said he has never before belonged to a political party and that he voted for the ANC in the past.
He set out the reasons in his own words. “Our country’s political future is at a crossroad,” he said, listing a weakening economy, racism he says is raising its head again, corruption, youth unemployment he describes as the highest in the developing world, and daily service delivery protests against poor administration.
His argument for the DA rests on what he says the party stands for. “Of all the political parties the DA stands most for what I believe in, a party that believes in individual freedom and a free market economy, as they have demonstrated in the Western Cape,” he said.
Much of the message is directed at young voters. Mashaba said too many black citizens feel they have no real political choice in the democracy, and that he wants to help “unchain our people and be politically free to choose for themselves and to express their views on what they believe to be right or wrong”.
He described the kind of society he says young people deserve, one of equal opportunity where they can express their beliefs and openly support any political party without fear of losing business or personal standing. He said he is a father of two young people and wants the best for them and for the country’s youth.
The call to vote a governing party out is the sharpest line in the message. “If one party does not perform we must vote them out,” Mashaba said. “It is not disloyal to vote for a change of government, it is our patriotic duty as South African citizens to do so.”
He reached for Nelson Mandela’s promise of an accountable and just government, saying South Africans must choose leadership that is fully accountable to the people.
Mashaba closed by asking young South Africans to “shake off the shackles of struggle politics” and to take responsibility for thinking about the country’s future for themselves.
The announcement places a well-known business figure inside the official opposition ahead of coming electoral contests, and it is aimed squarely at a segment of the electorate the parties have been fighting over.
