Dikwankwetla Party of South Africa is a political party in the Free State province, South Africa. The party was founded by Kenneth Mopeli in 1975. The party governed the bantustan state of QwaQwa from 1975-1994.
It was one of the signatories of the National Peace Accord, but later withdrew.
In the first non-racial elections held in South Africa in 1994 the party contested both parliamentary and provincial elections. It won 19,451 votes in the parliamentary elections (0.1% of nationwide vote) and 21,877 votes in the provincial elections in the Free State, failing to win seats in either.
After not standing in the 1999 elections, the party entered into an electoral pact with the Pan-Africanist Congress for the 2004 elections, after renouncing their pact with the Democratic Alliance. DPSA candidates contested on the PAC parliamentary lists. DPSA did however contest the provincial elections in the Free State, were it got 9,806 votes (0.97% of the votes in that province), again failing to win a seat. In the municipality of Maluti a Phofung (formerly the QwaQwa state) the party got 8,493 votes (6.7%). The party also has some small base of support in the central parts of the Free State.
In the 2009 elections, the party again contested only the Free State provincial election, failing to win a seat. The party managed to win a by-election in QwaQwa in December 2011, earning it its only current ward seat.
Today the party is led by Moeketsi Lebesa.
Famous quotes containing the words south africa, party and/or africa:
“I don’t have any doubts that there will be a place for progressive white people in this country in the future. I think the paranoia common among white people is very unfounded. I have always organized my life so that I could focus on political work. That’s all I want to do, and that’s all that makes me happy.”
—Hettie V., South African white anti-apartheid activist and feminist. As quoted in Lives of Courage, ch. 21, by Diana E. H. Russell (1989)
“... the idea of a classless society is ... a disastrous mirage which cannot be maintained without tyranny of the few over the many. It is even more pernicious culturally than politically, not because the monolithic state forces the party line upon its intellectuals and artists, but because it has no social patterns to reflect.”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)
“I have a fair amount of faith that women won’t sit back and allow South Africa to become a totally male-dominated new society. The women in South Africa have shown that they are strong, and I think they will make their voices heard.”
—Paula Hathorn (b. c. 1962)