Agang South Africa

Agang South Africa is a South African political party, first announced by anti-apartheid activist Mamphela Ramphele on 18 February 2013,[1][2] and founded on 22 June 2013,[3] the date of the party's first official congress.[4][5][6]

Agang South Africa
English nameBuild South Africa
PresidentAndries Tlouamma
Founded18 February 2013 (2013-02-18)
HeadquartersPO Box 31817, Braamfontein, 2017
IdeologyAnti-corruption politics
Progressivism
Liberalism
Political positionCentre to centre-left
ColoursGreen
SloganRestoring the Promise of Freedom
National Assembly seats
0 / 400
Website
agangsa.org.za

The party encourages reforms towards direct governance, striving to "build a stronger democracy in which citizens will be at the centre of public life";[7] and challenged the governing African National Congress in the 2014 general election.[8] The party ran again in the 2019 general election.[9] Agang is a Setswana word meaning "let us build".[10]

History

On 28 January 2014, the Democratic Alliance (DA) announced that Ramphele had accepted an invitation to stand as its presidential candidate in the 2014 general election,[11][12][13] and the DA and Agang were set to merge.[14][15] On 31 January 2014, Ramphele stated that she would not take up DA party membership and would remain the leader of Agang, resulting in confusion.[16] On 2 February 2014, Helen Zille stated that Ramphele had reneged on her agreement to stand as the DA's presidential candidate.[17] Ramphele subsequently apologised for the reversal of her decision, saying that the timing was not right as the reaction to it had shown people were unable to overcome race-based party politics.[18] On 9 February 2014, following statements by Helen Zille that donor funding issues were behind the failed merger, Ramphele named business magnate Nathan Kirsh as a funder of Agang and said he would continue to fund the new party.[19][20]

In the 2014 election, the party received 52,350 votes, or 0.28% of the total, and won two seats in the National Assembly of South Africa.[21] Following internal conflict within the party, Ramphele announced her withdrawal from politics on 8 July 2014.[22][23]

Mike Tshishonga, one of the party's two MPs, was appointed acting president, but was expelled from the party in 2015 after being accused of misappropriating R80 000 of party funds, and then not attending the disciplinary hearing.[22][24] He was replaced as president by the party's other MP, Andries Tlouamma.

John McConnachie, party national spokesperson at the time of the 2014 election, claimed that Tlouamma and Tshishonga orchestrated a revolt against Ramphele in the aftermath of the party's poor results, resulting in her resignation, and that Tlouamma later engineered the expulsion of Tshishonga, replacing him in parliament with Koekoe Mahumapelo, an unknown member of his clique not listed on the Agang national list at the time of the elections.[25]

In the 2016 municipal elections, support for the party dropped to 0.01% nationally, and the party lost all of its seats in the 2019 general election.

Ideology

The following aims are listed on the party's website as of 2019:[26]

  • Replace the current economic system with one that works for all South Africans.
  • Focus on improvement of education by various means, including:
    • training teachers,
    • increasing teacher salaries,
    • improving and building libraries,
    • filling teacher vacancies, and
    • social grants to families with well-performing students.
  • Improve healthcare by various means, including:
    • expanding training facilities,
    • giving more control to local government, and
    • increasing private sector operational ability in the industry.
  • Improve public service by:
    • banning conflict of interest deals,
    • protecting whistleblowers,
    • training government officials in anticorruption best practices, and
    • introducing a culture of transparency in government.
  • Improve safety and security by:
    • boosting the police force budget,
    • investing in policing research,
    • de-militarising the police,
    • redesigning police training, and
    • introduction of open big data analytics in the policing and security sector.
Agang SA's logo from time of founding until adoption of current logo

Election results

National Assembly
Election Total votes Share of vote Seats +/– Government
2014[27] 52,350 0.28%
2 / 400
 – in opposition
2019 13,856 0.08%
0 / 400
 2 extraparliamentary

Provincial elections
Election[28][27] Eastern Cape Free State Gauteng Kwazulu-Natal Limpopo Mpumalanga North-West Northern Cape Western Cape
%Seats %Seats %Seats %Seats %Seats %Seats %Seats %Seats %Seats
2014 0.11%0/63 0.20%0/30 0.42%0/73 –– 0.36%0/49 0.13%0/30 0.44%0/33 –– 0.30%0/42
2019 –– 0.15%0/30 0.07%0/73 –– 0.16%0/49 0.15%0/30 0.21%0/33 –– ––

Municipal elections
Election Votes %
2016[29] 5,493 0.01%
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References
  1. Agang South Africa: Video: Mamphele Ramphele announces launch of Agang, 18 February 2013 Archived February 27, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
  2. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2014-05-06. Retrieved 2014-05-06.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  3. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2014-03-26. Retrieved 2014-05-06.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  4. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2014-05-06. Retrieved 2014-05-06.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  5. The Citizen (21 June 2013). "Agang SA to launch political party". thecitizen.co.za. Archived from the original on 24 June 2013.
  6. BBC (22 June 2013). "South African new party Agang to challenge ANC". bbc.co.uk.
  7. Agang South Africa | About Agang
  8. Polgreen, Lydia (2013-02-18). "Anti-Apartheid Leader Starts New Party in South Africa". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-09-08.
  9. "2019 Candidate Lists: Electoral Commission". Electoral Commission. Electoral Commission. 2019. Retrieved 27 April 2019.
  10. Smith, David (18 February 2013). "Mamphela Ramphele launches challenge to South Africa's ANC". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 February 2014.
  11. "Ramphele is joining us – DA source". IOL. 28 January 2014. Retrieved 28 January 2014.
  12. "Ramphele: This is an astonishing moment for SA". News24. 28 January 2014. Retrieved 28 January 2014.
  13. "Ramphele announced as DA presidential candidate". Mail & Guardian. 28 January 2014. Retrieved 28 January 2014.
  14. Davis, Rebecca (28 January 2014). "DA-Agang: Dial M for Merger". IOL. Retrieved 29 January 2014. Zille said that the two parties were establishing a 'joint technical committee to manage the integration of the DA and Agang SA structures and volunteers'.
  15. Ensor, Linda (28 January 2014). "Mamphela Ramphele joins DA as presidential candidate". Business Day. Retrieved 29 January 2014. Dr Ramphele said she believed the merger was a historic moment
  16. Ramphele, Mamphela (31 January 2014). "I won't be accepting DA membership on Monday". Politicsweb. Retrieved 31 January 2014.
  17. Zille, Helen (2 February 2014). "Mamphela Ramphele has reneged on our agreement". Politicsweb. Retrieved 2 February 2014.
  18. "Ramphele says she made the right decision with DA candidacy". Times LIVE. 3 February 2014. Retrieved 3 February 2014.
  19. Seale, Lebogang (5 February 2014). "Donor funding 'a danger to democracy'". The Star. Retrieved 9 February 2014.
  20. Aboobaker, Shanti (9 February 2014). "Exposed: DA-Agang mystery funder". Sunday Independent. Retrieved 9 February 2014.
  21. "Battered but unbowed, Agang enter parliament". eNCA. Retrieved 11 May 2014.
  22. Ndenze, Babalo (9 July 2014). "No tears as Ramphele quits party". Cape Times. SAPA. Archived from the original on 9 July 2014. Retrieved 9 July 2014.
  23. "Ramphele quits party politics". News24. SAPA. 8 July 2014. Archived from the original on 8 July 2014. Retrieved 8 July 2014.
  24. "Ex-Agang MP loses bid against party". TimesLIVE. Retrieved 2019-04-27.
  25. McConnachie, John. "Elections 2019: Why voters are less likely to vote for emergent parties". Daily Maverick. Retrieved 2019-04-27.
  26. "Policy - Agang SA". agangsa.org.za. 27 April 2019.
  27. "2014 National and Provincial Elections Results – 2014 National and Provincial Election Results". IEC. Archived from the original on 10 May 2014. Retrieved 11 May 2014.
  28. "Results Dashboard". www.elections.org.za. Retrieved 2019-05-11.
  29. "Results Summary - All Ballots" (PDF). elections.org.za. Retrieved 11 August 2016.
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