The NPP ‘will fight for coloureds’

Though everyone was welcomed to join the newly-formed National People’s Party (NPP), the party will focus on fighting for the betterment of coloured people, its leader David Sasman said on Sunday.

He was addressing the party’s first media conference, held in a Cape Town hotel, where it was announced that a total of 66 local councillors in the Western Cape had crossed the floor to it.

Unifying the coloureds

“We need to unify the coloureds. At this stage there are coloured leaders that proclaim they are the voice of the coloured people, but you can see they’ve got party angles and party allegiances,” Sasman said.

He said the African National Congress catered particularly for black people, and the Democratic Alliance “looks after” whites.

“Now you cannot be the coloured voice and have allegiance towards the ANC or have a coloured voice and have allegiance to the Democratic Alliance.

“We need a voice for the coloured people and for coloured people only. We aren’t a coloured party, because that’s wrong to have a coloured party only.

“But we will look after the interests of coloured people in particular.”

He said the party was open to everyone, and it had black and white members on its council.

Badhi Chaaban helped set up the NNP

Sasman confirmed that Cape Town African Muslim Party councillor Badhi Chaaban had played a major role in setting up the new party.

“However it’s up to Mr Chaaban if he wants to join the NPP,” he said.

Chaaban has not yet revealed whether he does intend to cross the floor.

Quizzed on allegations that Chaaban had bribed local councillors to cross to the NPP, he said that if a member of the DA went to a poor home and saw a child needing milk, he proclaimed that there was a need to change economic policy.

An NPP member on the other hand would buy milk and give it to the child.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we do not bribe people,” he said. “We are honest brokers for the… disenfranchised people of South Africa.”

NPP chief executive Faried Stemmet said the party was “clearly and definitely pro-poor.”

“The party stands on its vision of service delivery to the people of South Africa,” said Stemmet.

What the party stands for

“The party stands and will make certain that the poor, the poorest of the poor, will be protected.”

He said the NPP was positioning itself as a national party, with an eye on the 2009 general elections.

Quizzed on the party’s relationship to Karoo politician Truman Prince, Petrus Roodtman, another senior NPP member, said Prince was an “honourable member of society” and a good leader, who had won awards for his performance as administrator in Beaufort West.

Roodtman, who is a councillor on the Kannaland council in the Little Karoo, said he was an NPP councillor, but a member of Prince’s Independent Civic Organisation of SA.

The Icosa constitution allowed dual membership, he said.

Asked whether the two organisations would merge, he said a statement on the matter would be released later.

Prince did not attend the media conference, but was seen in the hotel.