The Youth of the UDM disrupted #Encatownhalldebate, yes we did not see chairs flying Wich shows a caliber of maturity from their end, however was it necessary? Are you really desperate for coverage to an extent of protesting to get it?@N_Kwankwa #Kwankwaonnews24

— Ngwako Mohlodi (@MohlodiNgwako) May 2, 2019

Kwankwa: The youth were not protesting for attention. They were trying to defend a constitutionally enshired value of multi-party democracy. If you were to go to Chapter 1, the very first section of the Constitution, that deals with the founding provisions of the Constitutions. Subsection A says SA will be founded on the values of human dignity, the attainment of equality, the advancement of human rights and freedom. The second is non-racialism and non-sexism. The third value is supremacy of the Constitution. The fourth value is about universal suffrage, a national common’s voters’ role, regular elections and a multi-party democratic government to ensures accountability and responsibility and openness. It’s not the UDM that says that, it’s the South African Consitution that says that.

In 2014 South Africans gave meaning to that by saying we want to have 13 political parties. Who is eNCA to say that we are no longer going to respect the will of the people. Had eNCA not invited us to that debate what happened last night would not have happened. They invited us, we accpeted, and made the necessary arrangements. I even flew to Johannesburg. When media houses invite us, they think all we do is say yes, but influences your entire campaign programme. That influenced my entire campaign schedule.

It’s an unadulterated clap-trap. What the young people of the UDM did there… there was no violence. They put up clear placards that said what we are standing and fighting for. The young people of a party is the first line of defence. The young people of the UDM was our first line of defence and defended an important value of our multi-party democracy that was infringed upon. 

The battle needs to be taken forward. Once the results of the elections are declared, we need to ask, what do we mean by mutli-party democracy? Are we being true to respecting the will of the people? We can’t have media houses that seem to be biased in favour of certain parties. If that’s true, we’re going to make it difficult for them to operate. Especially if they’re going to do it in communities where we have people.