I have been invigorated by the businesslike air of our party’s 32nd Annual General Conference. The pertinent issues and the sense of urgency exuded by this conference – taking place only eighteen months away from the 2009 election - have foreshadowed the challenges associated with this momentous event in the political calendar. This conference has also brought into focus that everyone’s role in the IFP - from top leadership through to wider membership - is crucial if we are to win back KwaZulu Natal in 2009. 

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. Let us be absolutely clear about this when we campaign ahead of that election around the province and the country. The first task where each one’s individual effort will be required will be to consolidate our core support through comprehensive voter registration. 

Even before we embark on the official campaign trail, we will have to be able to say that all our loyal supporters – even the ones who have not had the chance to vote IFP before - have been placed on the common voters’ roll.This is going to take a lot of time, energy and discipline but I have no doubt in my mind that - together - we can and will accomplish it. We must enter the upcoming election campaign with the tactical advantage of all our ducks in a row, so to speak. 

The deliberations you have undertaken during this conference have been marked by one quality that is often amiss in public discourse in South Africa nowadays. I am, of course, talking of honesty. As integrity is fast disappearing from the public life and as it is giving way to high-profile media trials – where even the members of the national cabinet are being confronted with their apparently unsavoury past – it is up to us in the political opposition to uphold standards of common decency. 

True, 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 was to emphasise that the responsibility for the party is shared equally among all of us who call IFP a home. 

One particular resolution that has emerged from this conference will be a genuine test of individual integrity. We have undertaken to monitor the performance of our branches and report on their progress truthfully and at regular intervals. This is in the interest of enhanced member accountability as well as improved party mobilisation on the ground where our drive for full voter registration and our subsequent 2009 election campaign will matter most. 

In eighteen months’ time not only we but also the ruling party will be facing an election. The provincial government, from which we were unceremoniously turned out a year ago, is in shambles. The ruling party is increasingly dogged by charges of corruption, fraud and maladministration, and continues to be plagued by a divisive leadership battle. Not much time or energy is left, I imagine, in such unhappy circumstances, for finding solutions to HIV/Aids, poverty, unemployment or crime.

 The IFP must use the remainder of our time in opposition to sharpen our policy responses to these challenges. 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 domain of the ruling party. We have to outdo them with deeds and tangible delivery. 

I would like to thank everyone coming to Ulundi to participate in this conference. You are the meat and bones of this party!  I would also like to thank the IFP leadership and staff for organising this first-class event. I sincerely hope you will take the message of this conference home: each one of you matters if we are to succeed in 2009. I wish everyone a safe journey home and a merry Christmas and a very happy and prosperous New Year 2008. God bless and good bye.
 

Contact: Jon Cayzer
084 555 7144