Address by
Ms VZ Magwaza,
IFP National Chairperson

I would like to remind you today that a political party is no different from any business or civil society organisation. By signing up, one becomes bound to respect its internal rules and regulations. One must learn to appreciate that the rules are there to protect the organisation as much as its individual members. One may not always agree with the majority opinion but the internal party rules are there to protect individual dissent as much as the majority decision itself.

At the heart of internal party obligations are loyalty and discipline. One joins a political party voluntarily and one should remember this at all times. While loyalty and discipline are taken for granted under smooth sailing, rough seas create an urgent need for both. They are also ultimate guarantees of party unity. After all, united we stand and divided we fall.

A political party is no different from any social club. Prospective members must want to join. There must be obvious advantages of membership. There must be a belief in common goals. There must be a realisation that a political party is primarily a force for change. We all are in politics because we desire change. We want to end poverty, eradicate disease, and usher in prosperity. A political party is a large umbrella to cover a whole range of ideas. The larger the umbrella, the more individuals can find a place underneath.

Nor can we be complacent about our own support-base. We must take every opportunity available to grow the Party and actively recruit disillusioned members of other parties and tell them that they have a home in the IFP. This includes reaching out to former members of the defunct NNP. We must also widen our net to attract people from the business community and the unions such as NATU and IMATU.

We must prepare in earnest for the local government elections which can be held from December 7 2005. We must be ready for when President Mbeki fires the starting gun. We must be ready whenever he is.

Any army going into battle needs a winning strategy. Let us consider the hard facts. At present, the IFP controls 41 out of 61 municipalities. This is a clear majority of the municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal. This gives us an excellent opportunity to showcase IFP service delivery and to position our Party so that we can return to government in 2009. Let us seize it with both hands.

The IFP's viability as a political party depends upon your contribution, dedication and hard work. Each one of you is the IFP's ambassador and servant in your community and constituency.

I am aware that there are limited resources. But my message to you today is that there are also unlimited possibilities. As our leader often reminds us, real progress will be brought about by a community 'from the bottom up' approach. We, as a Party, have a proven track record of that in both provincial and local governments.

The IFP contested the 2000 local government elections with the Charter for Development.  I believe we won on the strength of this very Charter. It crisply laid out what the IFP stood for and still does. The Charter's commitments and guarantees of good governance and service delivery remain binding on all our councillors.

During the last general election we campaigned on the five most important issues facing our people: HIV/Aids, poverty, job creation, economic growth, crime and corruption. The challenges remain the same. My plea to you is to take this great work forward and develop issue-based campaigns in your communities. Let us reach deep into this province and beyond.

After the floor crossing, we know that the biggest threat to our democracy's hard-won freedom today is that people are loosing faith in the democratic process itself and their government.