UDM NATIONAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE RESOLUTIONS MEDIA STATEMENT ISSUED BY UDM NATIONAL SPOKESPERSON (14 MARCH 2007)

The UDM National Executive Committee (NEC) met over the past weekend and resolved among other things that:

There is a need to level the playing fields when it comes to elections. Based on previous experience, it is apparent that the ruling party has an unfair advantage with regards to access to the Public Broadcaster and with regards to the loyalties of election officials. Especially in rural and township areas election administration is manned primarily by civil servants who depend on the government for their salaries and who are often aligned to the ruling party by virtue of Cosatu union membership. As far as the Public Broadcaster is concerned, a good example of the unfair bias towards to the ANC, is the repeated exclusive live coverage of ANC manifesto launches and campaign events; this is never offered to any other party.

The NEC has mandated the UDM leadership to lobby other stakeholders in elections to pressurise the IEC and ICASA to address these issues as a matter of urgency.

Secondly, the NEC noted its concerns about a lack of service delivery at local level due to infighting among ANC councillors at Local Government level. It is common to find these days in most municipalities governed by the ANC that councillors are divided into two camps, the so-called Zuma-camp and Mbeki-camp.

The NEC further resolved that the UDM will hold its tenth anniversary celebration in September this year.

The NEC called upon the relevant parliamentary committee to call as soon as possible for public submissions on floor-crossing so that the much-promised review of this legislation can start in earnest.

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