Not yet Uhuru: Opposition parties lament state of SA on Freedom Day

Not yet Uhuru: Opposition parties lament state of SA on Freedom Day

Opposition parties say many South Africans still live under deplorable conditions 30 years into democracy.

South African Flag in the wind
Oleksii Liskonih / iStock

The United Democratic Movement (UDM) has said that many South Africans, particularly the majority of black people, still face economic exclusion due to poverty and unemployment.


 The UDM’s secretary-general Yongama Zigebe said that 30 years later, Project South Africa finds itself in ever-increasing jeopardy, and the governing African National Congress was blamed.


“The UDM contends that an increasing number of South Africans have come to realise that the ANC has departed from its roots as a liberation movement. It’s abandoned its original agenda of uplifting all South Africans,” Zigebe said.


Action SA’s Herman Mashaba, and the party’s Gauteng premier candidate Funzi Ngobeni, led to the party’s Freedom Day Celebrations in Orange Farm.


Mashaba said the country had not achieved true freedom as many remained in a cycle of poverty while crime spiraled out of control.


Rise Mzansi leader Songezo Zibi took the party’s commemoration event to the streets of Soweto.


Zibi took part in a freedom walk through historically significant streets joined by struggle veteran Seth Mazibuko. Mazibuko the 16 June 1976 Soweto uprising in his youth.


The Democratic Alliance said its leader John Steenhuisen would lead the party's commemoration events in KwaZulu-Natal, in eThekwini. The event will also premier the next DA television advert known as "Pathway to Victory."


‘FREEDOM MADE THE DREAMS OF MANY BLACK KIDS POSSIBLE’ - LAMOLA


Meanwhile, President Cyril Ramaphosa led the Freedom Day national celebrations at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, marking the 30th anniversary of South Africa’s democratic dispensation.


Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola joined Gauteng Panyaza Lesufi in delivering messages of support at the event, which is themed 30 Years of democracy, partnership, and growth.


“In 1994 I was a 10-year-old boy who watched my parents go to vote with glee in a TSB farm in Komatipoort. I also saw in the news long queues of people ushering in our new freedom when they were voting. We could not play with, nor attend the same schools as the white kids on the farm, nor could we have the same dreams of engineers, astronauts, or even being mere lawyers.


“Today I stand here before you as an LLB graduate of the University of Venda who was funded by Nsfas. I speak with conviction today when I say I am a Tintswalo, and every household in this country has a Tintswalo. Freedom made the dreams of many black kids like me possible.”


The event coincides with the 28th anniversary of the Constitution's enactment as the supreme law.

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