MBOMBELA – The Bushbuckridge Residents Association (BRA) won a provincial seat in last week’s general elections. Mr Cleopas Maunye, the party secretary who will be the representative in legislature, told Lowvelder he will be the voice of the rural people.
“We will stand for them – for service delivery. We wanted one of our own to represent us. We only see most politicians during election campaigns. People wanted someone who will attend their funerals and see to the roads.”
Maunye stays in Acornhoek. He started the party along with Messrs Delta Mokoena and Dan Mashewo after they were expelled from the ANC in 2010. “We were raising issues of service delivery,” he said. That was one of the reasons for their expulsion.
The party first mobilised for the 2011 municipal elections, and won seven of the 74 seats. During last week’s elections, they also contested the national elections. They won votes in every province, and 1 043 people in Gauteng voted for BRA. The bulk of their support still came from Mpumalanga, where 12 208 people voted for them, of which 11 700 live in Bushbuckridge.
Maunye conceded that it would be a challenge to create a national identity and plans to use the party’s local seat to garner more support since their concern is for rural people, who he says face similar challenges.
“We are not going there to speak good English or make noise, but to be the voice of the people.” He says the party has already started organising for the 2016 local government elections.
They operate from a small budget, mostly funded by sympathetic supporters and membership fees. Yet, they have not been without controversy.
Last year Mokoena was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for vigilante-related crimes. He was recently released on bail pending his appeal against his conviction.
“Most politicians don’t know what is going on. They rely on reports from their people on the ground, and they are the most corrupt ones. They would say they don’t account to the people but to the party which put them there. We want to break that chain of unaccountability.”
The date for the swearing-in of MPLs has been confirmed as Wednesday.
