MF LEADER SPEECH - MANIFESTO LAUNCH 2019 (1)

Hon S Thakur-Rajbansi
Leader of the Minority Front

Speech delivered by: Hon Shameen Thakur-Rajbansi, Leader of the
Minority Front

Event: Launch of the Minority Front 2019 Election Manifesto
“LET’S MOVE FORWARD TOGETHER”

1. Revered Priests, my mum Mrs H. Thakur, SAMREM Chair Ashin
Singh, Dignitaries of the Diplomatic Core, Honoured Guests,
Religious Leaders, Community Leaders, Senior Citizens,
Volunteers, Supporters, Well-Wishers, MF NEC Members,
Candidates, Staff and the Media, warm greetings to all.

2. The Minority Front was established in 1993 on the principles
for speaking up for the working class, marginalized, the poor and
predominately the Indian community. However, with a passage
of time that base of electorate has now become eroded because
people’s affluence has now increased, education levels have
improved and the MF has been repeatedly asked: Are you
relevant?

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Today, we celebrate 25 years, a quarter of a century of the
existence the MF. Once again the MF finds itself even more
relevent than ever before, for marginalized groups. Having said
that, one can easily say it’s based on race because of the
government’s policy to further marginalize minorities for
example, Affirmative Action which should include Coloureds and
Indians.

The ruling party has entrenched racism by introducing
demographics and quotas which further marginalizes minority
groups.

I say to you all that, marginalized groups can be any cohesive
group that has been side - lined by government’s policy or lack
of policy, for example, the rural areas get neglected because the
resources of the country are not adequately deployed , so rural
people become a marginalized group.

Marginalized groups can be categorized by illnesses where in our
health facilities, not enough medication and staffing is provided
e.g. genetic conditions. So, the MF was formed for minority rights
for all these reasons.

The MF works with the majority, whoever the party may be,
because we believe in in co – operative co – existence. Today
some parties have become “power drunk and drunk with power,”

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so we need to remove this bad power and rather strengthen the
MF. The DA is the master of false promises. Never be swayed by
these sweet tongues before elections. After elections the DA
does the Disappearing Act, like mist vanishes in the sun.

I ask you all, tell me one thing, that the DA has done for you
except make our people stand with placards and jump up and
down. Let me tell you, you can jog at Chatsworth stadium, you
don’t have to pay fees. Nobody pays fees in the whole of South
Africa. Let me remind all that, the Chatsworth stadium was built
by the community facilities fund by our grandparents. In fact the
stadium should be private property for the people of Chatsworth,
run by our sport bodies and we should charge a fee for everyone
using our stadium. Yes, we will change the name to the Rajbansi
Stadium, even the Higginson to the Rajbansi Highway.

I invite the DA leader Musi Mainmane to the Chatsworth Stadium
for an open debate and everyone is welcome to attend. We will
give him and his stooges a Chatsworth send off for non-
performance. I say Vote out the toothless DA and the corrupt
ANC on 08th May. Vote for the Tigress.

Indian, Coloured, now even White young professionals and blue
collar workers need more work opportunities and the MF is your
watchdog to ensure that the new Parliament invests in our
communities.

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The situation is so volatile that we see the resurgence of Afrikaner
conservatism. Colured people have had their fair share of
complicated political history but I want to wish Patricia de Lille
well in her new party, being a women leader too.
The Minority Front will support Coloured communities to not
accept fatalistic attitudes towards injustice.

3. Affirmative Action:
1. Historically, the White paper review in 2000 did not occur
2. The Sunset clause in 2014 did not materialize
3. The born – frees are coming into parliament and ensuring
Affirmative Action stays for the majority black African people.
Our government is racist because, every policy and programme
claims non – racialism and non – sexism but in reality, the
government continues spitting out race obsessed policies. Yes,
we speak of “demographic correctness”, but we ignore
transformed minds.
We can never achieve “social cohesion” and nation – building like
this “forward – looking but backward thinking.” Therefore, Let’s
all Move Forward Together, with the MF this 08th May, since the
government is hell bent on keeping Affirmative Action..

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Now, the MF wants Affirmative Action to stay too but for minority
Indians, Whites and Coloureds, like it happens in other
democratic countries.
I believe it’s fair, almost 30 years into democracy.
The test to consider is that Affirmative Action should assist
discriminated groups.
In South Africa, we have BBBEE which is a pro – poor policy for
economic and social backwardness or PDIs, there is no argument.
Hence, currently Affirmative Action remains a Constitutional
promise with political expediency but it won’t stand the test of
Equality for born – frees 30 years down the line.
Affirmative action has been terribly misused to bloat the public
sector, 80% of budgets goes to salaries and 20% to service
delivery.
Affirmative Action extends into public, private sectors, housing,
and minority quotas in education. This is reverse discrimination
therefore not social justice.
The Affirmative Action policy must change, not on economic
need but for discriminated groups. This will be only fair because
we have enough pro – poor or income based policies.

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4. Land Expropriation: The MF has asked for a plan and for the
responsible committee to produce the land register for privately
owned and government land with verification of title deeds
through a government gazette. We need to plan from StatsSA
and the National Planning Commission for how unused, vacant
government land must be utilized on the next 5 years.

The land grabs from White and Indians must stop.

People have paid their rates and utility bills so there must be no
lawlessness.

If the government has good intentions then ensure that all
vacant government owned property that is categorized for
housing is cut up and first given to homeless South Africans and
to every family where there is overcrowding, as well as, the
informal settlements, to people who are South Africans but
homeless.

Those who are migrant workers and live in informal settlements
but have their other home in another province or city or in rural
or semi – rural areas must be allocated government rental
dwellings.

Those in government rental dwellings must be given the first
option of a title deed or be given a free piece of land to allow for
other tenants to rent.

What is more important is the Property Expropriation Bill that
was advertised on 21st December 2018. It is not known whether
this was incorrectly advertised, or whether it supposed to read
“Land Expropriation” and not “Property Expropriation.” The MF
will track this and so must the media.

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5. Housing is a right in our Bill of Rights, but the government
prefers the mushrooming of informal settlements. That’s their
idea of social housing; reduce our people to sickness, social – ills
and dehumanize them, use them as vote – banks for years then
give them houses. In some cultures e.g. Indian, our people will
rather live crowded or rent than live in a shack. This is unhealthy
and risky. Yet a simple transparent housing list is so difficult. The
MF wants “social” housing to be controlled by Social
Development and the houses built or supplied by Human
Settlements not municipalities. I will ensure this mandate
changes, like I did for medico – legal (mortuaries) from SAPS to
Health and school nutrition programme from Health to
Education. My 20 years in the KZN Legislature has seen many
contributions, all for our people, like mandatory ECD.

6. The MF will be your eyes and ears. Remember the timing of
key tariff by parastatals e.g. NERSA during the December
Holidays. We will all face huge increases in our rates too because
residents may not object due to April being busy before
Elections. The MF says move this to June. This is unaccountability
to the extreme.

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7. State Capture: the rot of corruption in South Africa, can be
summed up as follows, yesterday the acting police commissioner
was granted bail.
Every State Owned Enterprise, government department, even
parliament i.e. the Executive and legislatures have been
dismantled with corruption.
Our country is standing only on one leg/pillar of democracy, the
judiciary, that too, mostly retired judges running our country by
Commissions.
We owe it our citizens to turn this around. Every political party in
the National Assembly is weak and has allowed this. This is the
first time, the Minority Front was not in Cape Town. We will be
there after May 08th, to change and shape debates, legislations
and regulations, so that we get back on track.
We all know Freedom is not free but, Freedom of the media is
also compromised and I can say our media is ‘partly free’
Freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, all under threat.
Look at the illegal rubber – bulleting of our Chatsworth residents.
The MF demanded the IPID report and we await justice and
amendments to three pieces of legislation.

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8. In the past 10 years, the phrase “politicians are supposed to
be servants of the people” has vanished, the National Assembly
has become a political circus and Hitler and Stalin – like
personalities have been presented to us, on National TV by the
Zondo Commission, as gifts of politics.
They have created problems, where none existed and created
personal fortunes from other people’s misfortunes, like the VBS
Bank saga. The Economic Freedom Fighters pick on the Indian
Community to distract our people from all the serious looting,
taking hard earned money from widows for children’s education
then the EFF demands free education. Such born – free
misleaders are dangerous for our communities. I also invite Julius
for a debate on being Indian.
When the MF goes to the National Assembly, I will be the voice
of our people to get real work done, stop the insanity and fights.
We have to be a slave drivers for service delivery for our people

9. Our people are now rebellious and rightfully so, we want
Radical Political Transformation to achieve Radical Economic
Transformation. We do not want affirmative action, BBBEE, PDIs
all these are now discriminatory and will go against SDG2030, for
equality.

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10. Mother-Tongue Language: This is always a sore issue for
minorities. The MF demands that mother–tongue languages be
accommodated within the school curriculum to promote cultural
education. In the next year, the MF will push for this, as we
believe that there is a need to bring culture back into our
classrooms for all learners. We must save our mother-tongue and
introduce spiritual leadership in our schools.

11. The MF has always combated crime. We have already
invested in CPFs. We have partnered with a local organization
Crime Connection, using technology to keep our families safe.

12. The LGBT community: The MF has supported the gay, lesbian,
bi – sexual and transgenders from 1998 and our policies remain
to empower this minority grouping that still faces violence and
discrimination.
The MF will assist in the establishing of a one stop community
centre for the LGBT in Phoenix initially. We also want medical aids
to provide specifically for their requirements.
The MF launched a Women’s Circle last year, headed by Ms
Farida Jalal in Phoenix as a support structure for families too.

13. The KZN Finance MEC said there is no money for service
delivery, because we have paid salaries to the Isinduna, I ask why
not pay our home or family pastors and priests, too.

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14. Gender Based Violence is against women specifically
directed to a woman, because she is a woman.
To curb this, with the minimal funding we get, the MF invests in
empowerment young and older women and girl child e.g. we
carried out extensive sanitary towel distributions in schools for
our learners. As a small party we believe “education is a girl’s
weapon” “period.” I had completed gender studies recently and
support all the hashtag movements to be vocal about workplace
safety, advocating wellness programmes and even making
recommendation to the IEC to eradicate gender based violence
against women in politics.
South Africa is obligated to address violence but we have failed
because we do only 16 days awareness campaigns that doesn’t
change behaviour.
As a political party the Minority Front has dedicated plans. In
2014, we hosted a “young ladies” empowerment programme
with the churches. In 2016, we marched with the medical
students to the eThekwini municipality to hand a memorandum
for “pink transport” for women using public transport systems.
The MF also invests in male empowerment programmes,
especially in Fashion show promotions to give young men
confidence and positivity. I oversee that budgets are gender –
sensitive in Parliament.

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Are we walking the talk or talking the walk?
Eg: Mayor Zandile Gumede wants to walk for social ills yet social
ills are in our faces daily (walking the talk).
We must rather Talk the walk – Madam Mayor visit all offices
in EThekwini to ensure good service delivery, make good Exco
decisions, clear housing back logs and extending municipal
clinics to employ counsellor services and drug wise counsellor
services.

15. What is extremely worrisome is that our government has
never been transparent about our Foreign Affairs Policy. Now we
certainly don’t need another Commission to look into this. We
want a consistent government policy on issues like immigration,
terrorism and violence, refugees and asylum seekers. The lack of
transparency causes division and instability in South Africa. The
MF wants more job opportunities for minority youth in Foreign
Affairs.

16. Minority Rights: Today our Indian and White teachers are
terrorised by parents and SGBs to be forcibly removed to show
equity in management but this is not done in other areas, so,
reverse racism and ethnic nepotism is alive.
The MF says scrap or change Affirmative Action and implement
Employment Equity correctly everywhere. Currently, our Indian

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and White civil servants do not get promotions and are told to
take early packages. This is unforgivable, knowing we have a
skills deficit.
What I want to see after May 08th, that government departments
become role models and use the concept of a Rainbow Nation,
“We look like a Rainbow Nation” behind the desks of
departments, there must be one person of each race group male
and female, making ever visitors feel welcome. We can only fast-
track social cohesion by being inclusive, not side – lining.
Remember, the MF will exist until minorities have recognition
with empowerment.
Our languages and cultural rights, the right to a living or jobs,
housing, education, health, etc...
Once upon a time, South Africa had a strong, well established
private sector and we had higher overall levels of income. Today
by the state capturing the private sector, the state is making
citizens highly dependent on it, and is becoming the only source
of income and benefits, basically Nationalism.
In 2014 the Khoi – San people formed a political party and in
2015 this bill was established.
In the final analysis, when the ruling party wants to remove
parties which are a threat, they introduce recognition laws like in
November last year, the traditional and Khoi – San leadership Bill.

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The Minority Front also asked for a Minorities Commission and a
Minorities Ministry in 2014 and we continue to do so, because it
is valid and valuable.

17. To journalists: professors or not, I want to tell you
categorically, that the MF is here to stay so no one must write
again that “with no MF, Indians are bereft of a political home” 20
Feb 2019 – POST. Therefore, we say “Come Back Home” “Let’s
Move Forward Together.” We are capable of deciding our own
future together.
I say to other opportunistic parties, “You tried to destroy the MF”,
we survived, do not come to Chatsworth, Phoenix etc. once in 5
years, take our people’s vote and disappear for the 5 years. Our
charous, won’t buy that on May 08th 2019.
Now I acknowledge that dagga is legalised. The dagga party is
not contesting this year, but dagga is unregulated and therefore,
it’s dangerous for many people’s free thinking.
Speaking of Minority Parties. Can anyone tell us just how
vociferous are these leaders on any rights?
I am told that some of these party members or leaders are absent
half of the time or when crucial votes are been decided they take
smoke breaks or abstain. They cannot lead people. Finally, parties
who represent minority rights must be judged by how much

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assistance they give to any organization or individual to develop
our communities

18. Voter Education: It is high time voters are aware on how to
choose your political leadership because there is a great worry
about lack of such leadership especially in the Minority Indian
Community.
My advice is go through the “Tick boxes for leaders,”
How many come once in 5 years?
How many spend time screaming and shouting in parliament?
How many lack intelligence, emotion and spirituality?
How many are corrupt and speak lies and never keep up to their
promises?
6. If a party has leaders like this then reconsider otherwise you
will have 5 years of hell.

19. 2019 MF Candidates: In the last 7 years, I have groomed
politicians and today I can proudly say that the MF has strong
capable leaders both youth and those over 35 years who are
ready to fight the May 08th election.
I have based these “political learnerships” on the fact that
“freedom is not free” and every generation needs to earn its own
freedom.
These candidates, some of whom are seated on stage and many
are in the audience, have been trained to be grass – roots

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politicians because on the brink of the 6th general elections, this
is our “tryst” with destiny, we have to remain part and parcel of
mainstream politics in South Africa to serve and save our country.

20. My rise to MF Leader
Mr Rajbansi passed on during the latter part of 2011. In the early
part 2012, the NEC resolved to elect myself as leader of the MF.
This was reported widely in the media. Following complaints
from the public about certain Councillors and representatives
and party disciplining, legal battles ensued with a revolt against
leadership and councillors refused to report for duty.
Councillors wanted dual membership and the court ruled that all
matters should be joined and heard on 9th December 2013. At
the hearing on that day, an agreement was reached by all of the
revolting Councillors that my leadership of the party be
recognised. A new NEC was put into place for the MF. In 2018,
the National Conference of the MF reaffirmed my leadership and
the Constitution was amended at that National Conference to
prohibit dual membership of the MF with any other party. Any
MF member who joins another party or who was a member of
another party when joining the MF without resigning from the
other party prior to joining the MF is automatically disqualified
as a member of the MF.

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21. Family
A positive nation must have strong family structures, no matter
how they are constituted, because no government can replace
the role of family.
Therefore, MF wants the Mean Test for Child Support Grant to
change and only limit to 2 children.
We want a sex – education curriculum for schools and educators,
similar to countries like Mauritius.
The MF has funded pre – marital workshop programmes for
FBOs, so that, religious leaders can to advise young couples.

22. Implications of not voting
As the MF Leader I began my political career as a youth. During
those years it was very difficult to participate in politics as it was
considered a “man’s world” and certainly not something a young
woman would be successful in. However, I dispelled that notion
by providing value to the KZN Legislature for the last 20 years
and am one of the longest serving members. Notwithstanding
these achievements, had I not exercised my right to register to
vote and go out into the world of politics, I would not have made
these positive differences. It is with these views that the MF asks
all youth to go out and vote on 08th May on both ballot papers.
The disadvantages of not voting can be dire: You will deny

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yourself of the ONLY free right you have as a South African
Citizen. You will close the door on any possible opportunity that
you may have. You further disadvantage yourself of good and
transparent leadership in the Provincial Legislature and National
Assembly, who will unashamedly fight for the rights of Minorities
and who will be your eyes and ears in these institutions.
Therefore make sure you make the wise choice and vote MF on
Both Ballot papers on May 8th 2019.
We have come a long way, especially as Indentured people, from
Colonialism to Africanism,
So Let this be a better, not bitter life
I wish you all well in the forthcoming elections.
May all minorities be united regardless of race, religion, and
ethnicity.

Indira Gandhi said once, “If you walk behind me, I may not lead,
if you walk in front of me, I may not follow but rather walk beside
me, so that we lean on each other.
With these words I say,
Come back home to the MF in 2019
Let’s move forward together

Thank you all and God Bless

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Delivered by:
Hon. Shameen Thakur- Rajbansi
Leader of the Minority Front
(C): 083 777 8501
(T): 033 355 7760
(E): [email protected] or
[email protected]

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