Freedom in South Africa (FISA) has decided to part ways with the Congress of the People only weeks after the two political parties had entered into an agreement to work as partners in the forthcoming general elections.
According to FISA’s president and also the party’s Prime Minister candidate Kgoshi General Nthai Monnye, this decision was taken as a result of Cope’s failure to cope with requirements for a strategic partnership between the two parties.
“The problem with Cope is their leadership as it has not responded to our messages, has not involved us in the planning of the manifesto launch, has not committed to our discussions and failed to provide our members countrywide with buses to attend the manifesto launch,” said Monnye.
He said he drove all the way from Limpopo to Gauteng for a meeting with the Cope leadership this past Friday, but the party’s leadership failed to show up for the said meeting.
“At around 17h00 we wrote the party’s president (Terror Lekota) a letter asking him to intervene as his leaders had failed to come to the meeting,” said Monnye.
According to Monnye, Lekota phoned him at around 20h00, pleading with him to attend the manifesto launch but he told him they since members of FISA had not been provided with transport, he couldn’t attend the launch.
He said it became apparent that Cope had not paid for the transport as it could not provide receipts to prove this.
“Due to the above -mentioned reasons we decided that they are not honest and don’t respect us as the country’s kingdoms hence we subsequently cut off our relationship with them,” fumed Monnye.
Monnye revealed that FISA is not on the ballot box but is still looking for strategic partners to add their numbers to that political partner.
He said FISA wants to participate in all the provinces through strategic partners.
According to Monnye, FISA stands for a constitutional monarchy where ” kingdoms ” are above politics and the “prime minister ” runs the politics and economy of the country to liberate the people of South Africa.
“Cope is playing politics and one can’t trust politicians as this is normal to them because this is what they do best, but we are different to that kind of behaviour,” he said.
He apologised to all FISA members for the botched partnership with Cope but also said he was thankful that God exposed Cope before the elections as it is now clear that Cope would have thrown FISA and its supporters under the bus in the event that it won elections.
“Lack of finance on the side of Cope is not what we are complaining about, our complaint is dishonesty, poor communication and lack of inclusivity as Cope treated us like supporters rather than strategic partners,” lamented Monnye.
He admitted that Cope displayed signs of manipulation in that everything that they promised never materialise, including T-shirts which only had the Cope logo while ignoring the FISA logo.
Monnye told Tshwane Talks that the strategic partnership between Cope and FISA was signed on 22 March this year after FISA had realised that due to financial constraints, it couldn’t meet the IEC’s requirements that include a R750 000 registration fee to contest elections nationally, as well as the collection of 62 000 signatures.
“It was then decided to enter into a partnership with Cope and it is unfortunate that Cope has turned out to be frustrating to work with,” he lamented.
In response Cope’s Premier candidate Tom Mofokeng expressed sorrow regarding his party’s failure to provide buses to FISA members as promised.
“We indeed had an agreement with FISA to provide buses for their members countrywide,” said Mofokeng.
“This mishap was caused by a misunderstanding by transport company PUTCO, which collected people from one area only and ignoring other areas,” said Mofokeng as he pointed out that he had receipts to prove that the said buses were actually paid for.
“We will still engage FISA and everyone aggrieved by this mishap, we want to embrace them, and we want to let them know that in Cope they have chosen the right people,” said Mofokeng.