I have been inspired by the business-like air of our party’s 2007 Annual Women’s Brigade Conference. The issues and the sense of purpose exuded by this conference have foreshadowed the challenges of the 2009 general election. 

As I said last month, against the backdrop of an advancing one-party state, the fourth democratic election will be make-or-break time for multi-party democracy in the new South Africa. We have a real crisis on our hands, which will require your contribution, the women of the IFP, if we are to rise to it.

I believe you will. 

The deliberations you have undertaken during this conference have been marked by one quality that is too often absent in public discourse in South Africa nowadays. I am, of course, talking of honesty.

 We have been honest enough to call a spade a spade and identify accurately the challenges facing this province and country in our deliberations during this conference. But we must apply the same principles when we appraise our own respective contributions to the work of our party. 

The aim of this conference is to emphasize the role of women as champions in a crisis.  In this regard, this conference has generated a pool of valuable ideas based on individual or community experience. The Resolutions which have come out of our deliberations are ambitious but can be implemented if we find the will. Words and promises are the stuff of the ruling party. We have to outdo them with deeds and tangible delivery. Let us now turn to work. The time for words is over. 

As we leave this Conference consonant with our Annual General Conference theme – which was “EACH ONE’S ROLE IN A CRISIS AND THE FORTHCOMING ELECTIONS”, each one of us including Mangosuthu Buthelezi has a role in the forthcoming elections. As you leave this Conference each one of you should leave with a well defined role which each one of you as an individual, and us collectively, are going to play if we are going to regain any lost ground in the past elections. 

Elections are not complicated as they are a numbers game. We need to ensure that we persuade as many people as possible to vote for us.  We need to assist people to do so. This we can do by helping people, starting before the end of this year, to register to vote, if they have not done so. One of the major target groups are the young people who will turn 18 by 2009.  There are others who are older who have not registered who must also be assisted to register. 

The next thing is for us to start now making arrangements to ferry people to the voting stations so that they can get there and vote for us.  We know the shenanigans that the ruling party has done particularly in this province.  We need to guard against them for we know them by now, after three general elections and two local government elections. None of you is unaware of the things which we reported to the IEC since 1994, during each election, none of which was ever addressed by the IEC. 

It is no use moaning afterwards that we have been cheated when we know how we have been cheated over the years.  Let us not pretend that we are unaware of all these irregularities that our opponents have committed and got away with.

And one of the things that can ensure that we do reduce the volume of these irregularities is by starting now getting people to volunteer as Party agents.

We are a party which believes in self-help and self-reliance. We know that we are not in clover like the ruling Party! 

We do not have Godfathers and injections of funds such as that which the ruling Party got from Imvume oil company.  We therefore have to rely on our own selves because we do not have funds to throw around in elections.  But this should not discourage us from raising funds from now for the forthcoming elections.  Any rand matters!  There are various ways to raise funds.  Here again women are the champions, as they can raise funds even from AMAGWINYA.  Let us not look down on these self-help projects which have helped us survive in both the colonial era and the apartheid era.  Trying to campaign just a few months before elections is the surest formula for failure. 

Let us leave this conference determined to start cooperatives that can help us to get involved in alleviating the poverty of our people and to assist our children who are ravaged by the HIV/AIDS pandemic.  Let us not hesitate to form NGOs in order to get access to state funding to which we are entitled as citizens of South Africa. 

From this conference let us leave understanding very well that the Women’s Brigade branches should comply with our Constitution by having regular monthly meetings.  Even if the main branch is not meeting, the Women Brigade branches need to meet regularly if you are going to emerge as the Champions we know you to be in the present crisis and in the 2009 forthcoming elections. 

I have simplified the basic things which I consider to be a simple formula for our success in the current crisis and in the forthcoming elections. 

May we know that our dependence on God has been the key to our success in the past and it is the key to our success even in facing up to the current challenges.  But prayer alone without hard work will not achieve anything for us – for even God helps those who help themselves. 

As you travel back to your homes, may the Lord be with you and protect you. 

To those of you come from Ugu region I shall be coming with the Swami of the Divine Life Society Swamiji Sahajananda for the official opening of the Women’s Centre that has been constructed in memory of our women who died travelling to our conference.  This is in Inkosi Mavundla’s area, on Sunday November 18. 

GO WELL! 

NIHAMBE KAHLE! 

GOD BLESS 

VIVA WOMEN’S BRIGADE VIVA!
 

Contact: Jon Cayzer
084 555 7144