More than 4 000 supporters are expected at the Heartfelt Arena in Tshwane for the launch of Rise Mzansi’s manifesto on Saturday. The party, which is barely a year old, will present what it calls a people’s manifesto to the nation as well as unveil its political priorities, election campaign and legislative programme.
The five key tenants of the Rise Mzansi include political reform, public safety, economic growth, inclusion, and justice, fighting corruption and the climate crisis. The programme is expected to kick off at 10 am.
As the election year gets underway, Rise Mzansi, which was launched in April last year is hitting the ground running by being the first party to have its manifesto launch.
The party says its support base has grown from a mere 10 000 to 200 000 people. It is led by a former editor of Business Day and former associate editor of the Financial Mail, Songezao Zibi.
Other leaders include Makashule Gana who once served as a Democratic Alliance (DA) youth leader, DA Deputy Federal Chairperson, and a Shadow Minister of Human Settlements.
Saturday’s manifesto follows months-long engagements with communities across the country and policy engagements with various sectors. Rise Mzansi’s Chief Organiser Makashule Gana says the manifesto is underpinned by these engagements.
“Its issues of hunger, issues of safety, many communities feel that they are unsafe, there are many issues around the struggles of single mothers, the issues of drug addiction in communities, the slow pace and in some instances, services not being delivered on time and how professional the public service has been. So, these are some of the key issues and there are a lot of South Africans who remain unemployed, many South Africans who have not benefitted from this democracy.”
The party has attracted DA members including Nomsa Marchesi and most recently, Khume Ramulifho who served as a Member of the Provincial Legislature in Gauteng after serving close to three decades in the main opposition party.
Little-known youth party MoveSA has also announced that it would be contesting under the banner of Rise Mzansi.
Gana is confident that the party will make a significant impact on the country’s political landscape after the national and provincial elections.
“I’m very much confident as a Chief Organiser of Rise Mzansi that if an election were to be held tomorrow, we will be in Parliament. I’m confident that those Mzansis will be in the Gauteng legislature. I’m confident that Rise Mzansi will be in the Western Cape legislature. We are continuously growing in other provinces.”
For now, Gana says Rise Mzansi is not entertaining any coalition talks as they are focused on the performance of the party at the polls.
“Rise Mzansi will be on the ballot. We’ll discuss coalitions after the elections, people need to understand that I can’t start as Rise Mzansi to discuss coalitions until I get a single seat. Our focus is to win the minds and hearts of South Africans and ask South Africans to vote for Rise Mzansi that’s what we are focusing on. Let’s talk about coalitions after the elections. At the moment it will just be speculation and I don’t want to deal with that.”
