Former ANC WC leader Marius Fransman returns to political stage

CAPE TOWN - After five years in the political wilderness, former African National Congress (ANC) Western Cape leader Marius Fransman is back, this time at the helm of his own organisation. 

Just four months since launching the People’s Movement for Change (PMC), he believes that the future of politics is issue-based movements, rather than new political parties. 

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He said his intention was not to woo supporters based on race, but rather to focus on issues that affected the poor and working class. 

Once a popular leader in the Western Cape’s coloured communities, Fransman - a one-time deputy minister, left the ANC and politics under a cloud of sexual assault allegations in 2016.

But he felt he owed it to struggling communities to make a return, albeit with a different strategy. 

“All the PMC is going to try and do is to put 10 to 15 issues - real issues - of our people on the centre stage of politics, and not through a traditional party.” 

Fransman said the poor and working class were buckling under the strain of the sluggish economy and joblessness.

And, while he said he would not be campaigning on race, he believed he could attract disgruntled ANC members to join his movement. 

“We do not believe we must go into a space and we must put together a party that’s a coloured party. We don’t believe in that, at all. We believe there’s going to be a lot of people from the ANC. The ANC is going down fast. We think those people are looking for new homes.”

TACKLING REAL ISSUES

Fransman is not discounting attracting disillusioned Democratic Alliance (DA) members either, and believes there’s space for a new political movement to be favoured over existing parties. 

“Our society does not need more political parties, they need more issue-based movements, and that’s what I’m pushing for the future,” he added. 

He said having been a young leader in the ANC under anti-apartheid stalwart Dullah Omar, he had the mix of youth experience and mature politics to take on the real issues facing people on the ground. 

“Over the last two years I grappled with the reality that there’s a lot of chancers that are starting to enter the political domain, which I feel are lacking substance on the real issues of what is required for our people.” 

Fransman said as a pan-Africanist, he did not believe the country’s problems should be blamed on foreign nationals. 

“I don’t believe that everything that goes wrong in our country must be blamed on Zimbabweans. We need to be anti-xenophobic, and we must rather create an inclusive society.” 

FOCUS AREAS 

As a nascent party established only four months ago, Fransman said there had not been enough time to extend its reaches beyond the Western and Northern Cape. 

The target communities remain the poor, working, and middle class, whom he said are buckling under the pressures of holding onto their possessions. 

And while he doesn’t plan on targeting supporters from a particular race group, he is predicting the PMC will make significant inroads on the Cape flats, and rural and fishing communities. 

“We deeply believe we must continue creating a non-racial society, and therefore the PMC has leaders both in the coloured community and the black African community.” 

Fransman snapped up former Cape Town mayor and long-time DA member Dan Plato to join his ranks, as well as former GOOD Party Stellenbosch councillor Christie Noble. 

He’s counting on becoming the second largest party in the Western Cape, and entering the legislatures in both that province and the Northern Cape. 

Fransman is also hoping to make inroads at national level, but he will not be accepting cash from big donors to make his new political ambitions a reality, he said. 

The PMC currently relies on support from its members, and the pockets of its leaders. 

“We’ve got community people on our side. What distinguishes us is we’ve got NGOs, community-based organisations, and civil-society structures and smaller parties that’s not contesting; that’s part of us.” 

Right now, Fransman said he was not looking to join forces with any other party, and was not part of any pre-election coalition discussions. 

He predicted the end of major, traditional parties like the ANC and the DA over the next five years.

“Ours will be a five-year cycle. Ours will not be a today cycle.”