ANC MP BUTI MANAMELA CHALLENGES DA'S MAZIBUKO TO A DEBATE

25 April 2013

ANC Member of Parliament and Whip for the parliamentary portfolio committee on labour, Buti Manamela, has challenged DA Parliamentary Leader Lindiwe Mazibuko to a public debate on a wide range of issues relating to youth, politics and economy. 

Manamela's challenge to Mazibuko, made in form of a letter handed to her yesterday, follows the DA's controversial electioneering campaign which attempts to distort the history of our people's struggle for liberation and its mischievous comparison of the ANC and apartheid.

We are hopeful that Mazibuko will rise to the challenge.

Below is a copy of the letter Manamela handed to Mazibuko yesterday.

Hon L Mazibuko 
Parliamentary Leader, Democratic Alliance
Parliament of the Republic of SA
Cape Town

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 bizarre 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 rebut such assertions, possibly with questions from the moderator and/or the audience so that we do not leave these 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
Member of Parliament
African National Congress

Statement issued by the Office of the ANC Chief Whip, April 25 2013

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