The Cape Party has now changed their name and are planning on contesting the local government elections as the Cape Independence Party.
When announcing the launch and name change, party leader Jack Miller said that the push for an independent state in the Western Cape has gained increasing support from South Africans. He said that: “Cape independence is now an inevitability which more and more people are accepting as the only solution to perennial ANC rule.”
Miller also said that the democratic will of the people of the Western Cape can never be served by being part of South Africa. Miller said that:“The Western Cape is fundamentally at odds with the eight other provinces. And no matter how often the people of the Western Cape vote to keep the ANC out, we can never get the result we want. Cape Independence is and has been our signature issue for over a decade and its fitting that our name should easily convey our number one priority.”
A poll was conducted by Victory Research in July 2021 on behalf of the Cape Independence Party, the poll showed that a clear majority of the voters in the province (58%) now support a referendum on Cape Independence being held. Support for independence itself is now at 46.2% of all registered voters (with 49.6% opposing and 4.2% undecided) and 42% among all adults in the province when unregistered voters are included. Support among voters has increased with 12.2% over the past year.
The poll confirmed the following factors influence people’s opinions:
- 89% of respondents believe South Africa is going in the wrong direction.
- 33% said they have considered emigrating as an alternative to South Africa’s chaos and corruption.
- 73% believe that the Western Cape is better managed than the rest of South Africa.
- 59% of those who expressed a preference believe that their lives would improve in an independent Cape, and 75% affirmed their support for non-racialism
- 76% believe the province must have more control over its own policies.
- 62% would prefer less economic interference by the government and support the privatisation of key services.
- Respondents identified improvements in employment, education, health and crime prevention as their main motivation for Cape Independence.
Phil Craig, spokesperson of the Cape Independence Advocacy Group, said that, “The outcome of the poll places intense pressure on the Western Cape’s ruling party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), to call a referendum on Cape Independence.Not only do 65% of their voters support a referendum, but 19% of them also indicated that they would consider voting for another party if the DA opposed secession.Were they to do so, the DA would be forced into a coalition government with pro-independence parties. The consequence would be that the DA would have to call a referendum anyway.”
Sources: Business Tech
Follow FiND iT on Facebook here.
ALSO READ: Online voter registration opens for South Africans
