Parliamentary Leader, Democratic Alliance Dear Hon. Mazibuko
PUBLIC DEBATE ON “KNOW YOUR DA” AND PARALLELS BETWEEN THE ANC & THE NEW NATIONAL PARTY APARTHEID GOVERNMENT I have noted with interest the earnest Election Campaign by your political party, the Democratic Alliance, towards the forthcoming 2014 General Election. What caught my interest is the insistence by you and the Leader of your party (Helen Zille, Premier of the Western Cape) that the DA and its predecessors contributed to the liberation of this country, through the “Know Your DA Campaign”. In fact, in an interview on Metro FM on Monday, 22 April 2013 Mrs. Zille insisted that she also participated in the liberation of this country. Your party also did some very bizzare things (according to me) by celebrating the memory of Chris Hani this year (very impressive), Solomon Mahlangu and even having a major event in Kliptown where the Congress of the People adopted the Freedom Charter in 1956. You and Mrs. Zille have also drawn an extensive parallel between the ANC and the National Party government as part of a very opportunistic campaign to discredit the governing party and therefore score some political points. I do not agree with these assertions, as you would expect, and therefore challenge you to a public debate on these and other topics (such as the Youth Wage Subsidy, the National Development Plan and other economic policies of our parties), in front of a youth audience from both the DA and the ANC at a commonly agreed venue and moderated by a neutral person with equal time allocated for each of us. I am sure the public, especially the youth who will be the majority of the electorate in the forthcoming elections, deserves to judge for themselves the veracity of such assertions on the basis of facts presented to them through such a debate. It would also be in both our parties’ interest to support or rebutt such assertions, possibly with questions from the moderator and/or the audience so that we do not leave this questions to the wisdom of our different PR companies but we clarify them as young leaders. If you respectfully decline and may deem the task too burdensome, I am willing to debate with the leader of your Party, Mrs. Helen Zille, on the said issues and many others. Regards BUTI MANAMELA National Secretary Young Communist League of South Africa Member of Parliament African National Congress Sent from my iPhone -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
