MANIFESTO FOR A DEMONSTRATION AND A CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE CORRUPTION OF DEMOCRACY THROUGH THE CROSSING OF THE FLOOR LEGISLATION AND RECURRING ELECTORAL FRAUD.

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The IFP is exercising its democratic right to demonstrate, campaign and protest something which has happened time and again. We are protesting the recurring electoral frauds against the IFP.

In voicing our protest we are not only protecting and exercising our rights but we are indeed defending the whole of South African democracy. The whole of South African democracy is in jeopardy.

A democracy is only as strong as its weakest link. The weakest link of the South African democracy is in KwaZulu-Natal. KwaZulu-Natal is where South African democracy will snap, and it is indeed snapping.

The IFP has been a victim of electoral frauds since 1994. In 1994 the rigging was so widespread that the IEC announced the electoral results while counting was still in progress in IFP strongholds of rural KwaZulu-Natal.

The IFP was a victim of another electoral fraud in 1996 and again in 1999. The IFP has been the victim of electoral fraud in the elections in 2000 and again in 2004. The IFP has been the victim of electoral fraud during the last local government elections held at the beginning of last month.

The fact that these frauds are perpetrated on such a large and a growing scale shows a pervasive and pervading sense of impunity. There is obviously collusion between those who are breaking down our democracy and those who are institutionally called upon to defend it.

In 1994, in elections that were held in KwaZulu-Natal without the benefit of a voters roll, widespread fraud was registered. Entire ballot boxes were filled in with already pre-marked ballot papers in favour of the ANC to the point that in certain areas the vote cast far exceeded even the ordinary inhabitants.

The same pattern was repeated at the local government elections of 1996 which in its self were irregular and a fraud on the electorate. They were held in KwaZulu-Natal a year later than the rest of the country and this was done to enable the ANC to concentrate its entire national arsenal of electoral resources in KwaZulu-Natal.

It was promised that those who were caught red-handed would be prosecuted and convicted for their participation in all these electoral frauds, but somehow this has never happened.

Both in 1994 and 1996 elections were held against a backdrop of a low intensity civil war constantly waged by the ANC against the IFP and ignored by the press and law enforcement agencies alike.

The electoral fraud against the IFP in 1999 was fully documented and presented to the IEC. The IEC took the position that there was nothing they could do about it because the relevant deadlines according to the Electoral Act had lapsed. Such fraud was documented by IFP Members of Parliament who showed that elections district by electoral district, votes cast for the IFP were in fact shifted onto the ANC. In the same voting stations the IFP received thousands of votes for the national ballot but was alleged to have received zero votes in provincial elections, which was absurd.

It is not surprising that all these fraudulent activities have taken place in our electoral process because the IFP is aware that those employed by the IEC are either members or staunch supporters of the ruling Party, it is therefore inconceivable that at any time in future, the IFP could succeed in a free and fair elections because it is an open secret that these staffers undermine the complaints that the IFP advance in favour of the ruling Party. Similarly we know for a fact that it is the IEC's policy to employ Teachers who mostly are members of SADTU to man polling stations as they are members of COSATU, a member of the Tripartite Alliance of the Ruling Party. It also known and an open secret what they did as their contribution in terms of fraudulent activities in 2004 in order to deliver the Political Management of KwaZulu-Natal in the hands of the ANC. We therefore strongly feel that as long as the management of the Electoral Process is in the hands of these people democracy will never take root, and will deteriorate as it is happening now, in this country.

The blatant collusion of Departments of the State such as that of Home Affairs Department with the ruling party in using unclaimed Identity Books for registering and voting by members of the public, who are not entitled to those Identity Documents, in areas such as Pietermaritzburg undermines the free and fairness of our elections, and erodes the credibility of any democratic elections.

Another gross dent and violation of a free and fair election took place just before the last elections; this by any measure showed the lengths the ruling Party is prepared to go, to destroy our democratic processes. Our President Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi was the line function Minister for the IEC when he was Minister of Home Affairs; he never interfered with the process and the conduct of elections by the IEC. We even think that not many citizens of this country even knew who the line function Minister for the IEC was, for all those years he was Minister of Home Affairs. But what did we see before the last elections in KwaZulu-Natal, when a senior member of the ruling party and Minister of Local Government in this Province had the temerity to publish the names of Candidates who were going to stand for elections in this Province during the March 2006 elections, in fact he had eighty (80) photos of himself appearing in a number of supplements in a number of Newspapers that published those names and in comparison there were only two photos of Mr Mawethu Mosery who is mandated and legitimately charged with the running of elections in the Province of KwaZulu-Natal. As if that was not enough the very same Minister prior to the publication of that list of names he published in the same supplement the ANC's vision of how the Affairs of Traditional Leaders should be run. The IFP was not accorded that same privilege of putting across its vision. The IEC only offered a lousy apology for what it called an anomaly by their staff and the Newspapers concerned. The IFP did and still takes strong exception to this kind of violation of what it considers to be the sanctity of free and fair Elections. We have in our dossier included a copy of that supplement for every one who believes in democracy to see this for themselves. We also learnt reliably that the same Minister in this Province called all the MEO's to a clandestine venue where he met and briefed them about the elections, the IFP regards this act as a gross violation of elections by the ruling Party by blatantly interfering in the independence of the IEC and our electoral process. We call upon the scrapping of form MEC 7 as experience has shown that in a number of instances, it is deliberately misused by those in charge in voting stations, by allowing people who do not qualify to vote using the legitimacy of this form.

Further investigation proved that votes from other political parties were also moved towards the ANC during the stage of computing. The 1999 elections were also held against a backdrop of widespread violence against the IFP with targeted assassinations of its members, candidates and leaders. The same pattern was repeated in the year 2000.

The election of 2004 were equally characterized by widespread electoral fraud which the IFP fully documented before the Electoral Court. However, the IFP could not pursue the case before the Electoral Court and had to abandon it, not due to lack of validity of its case, but because of technicalities and because it was not going to change the outcome of the elections in terms of the Electoral law.

Again, that instance proved that our democracy is not working. Democracy should be about protecting the weak, and not rewarding the strong and the preponderant.

The last local government elections were held against a backdrop of this uninterrupted history of violence, intimidation, prevarication, fraud and treachery. In certain IFP strongholds, the IEC counted and declared that the IFP did not receive a single vote, in spite of the IFP having many affidavits of people swearing to having voted there for the IFP. One of such affidavits is even from a serving IFP Cabinet Minister whose vote for the IFP was not recorded.

The democratic machinery has broken down. The controls have broken down. Our democracy has broken down and has transformed our elections into a democratic farce. Our elections are no more about the will of the people; they are working in similar ways to those that obtain where the winner is known even before a single vote is cast. The IFP is reminded of what used to take place in Communist Russia (USSR), Mexico and many other similar countries that could serve as examples in years gone by, where voters required to go to the hustings just to confirm the incumbents.

Furthermore the farcical aspects of our electoral process have been enhanced by the treachery of the application, the consequence and practice of the crossing of the floor legislation. The IFP could not run the elections with the resources it was entitled to, because the crossing of the floor by some of its Members of Parliament both in the National and Provincial Parliaments deprived it of its financial resources. Under the law, the IFP should have had a share of financial resources equal to the electoral support it received in 2004. Instead it received a share of financial support equal to the Members of Parliament it had then, the number that had been severely curtailed by the fact that other Parties wooed many IFP Members of Parliament through checkbook politics, promises and intimidation.

The electorate has been defrauded time and again. It has and is still being defrauded by electoral frauds. It was defrauded because its elected representatives were wooed to abandon and betray them. It was defrauded because the money which the IFP constituency should have received to fight the election was cut down. All these show how these elections have no legitimacy.

The farcical nature of the electoral process in which we are involved, is further shown by the ANC already beginning to woo the newly elected municipal councillors to cross the floor and join the ANC once the new window of opportunity opens next year. The electorate is asking itself about the point and usefulness of electing their representative if in a span of one year they could move to a party which does not represent them and which they had chosen to vote against.

Our democracy continues to become a farce. It is nothing but a glittering spectacle to cover the indecency of an autocratic and dictatorial rule which does not shy away from resorting to fraud, violence, intimidation and checkbook politics to achieve its goals without any qualms in running roughshod over the will of the electorate.

The IFP stands firm to defend the rights and privileges of the electorate and in so doing the very essence of our democracy for which we fought, for so many years. Today, only the IFP stands between freedom and democracy on the one end and an autocratic dictatorship on the other.

The ruling party has acquired power through civil war, violence, intimidation, electoral frauds, treachery, broken promises and crossing of the floor against the IFP. The ANC political power has not been acquired entirely through the will of the people but indeed against the will of the people in many instances. Only the IFP stands by the will of the people to ensure that, that will is respected in the future.

Only the IFP stands between democracy and a one-party state which has also now been consolidated in this Province using fraudulent and undemocratic means. We reject the result of the elections because they are a product of fraud which begun not only now but that could be traced back to 1994.

We demand the scrapping of the immoral Floor-crossing Legislation.

We raise our voice not only to protect our rights and privileges but indeed the freedom of all South Africans and the very essence of our democracy.