Former DA and ActionSA leader Bongani Baloyi’s Xiluva Party, is the latest political party to distance itself from the Democratic Alliance’s Moonshot pact, aimed at stopping the ANC and the EFF from ascending to power in 2024.
Last week, DA leader John Steenhuisen called on opposition political party to join his pact in a bid to prevent an ANC/EFF led coalition come the general elections in 2024.
Baloyi who recently unveiled his party after resigning from ActionSA, said he would not be joining the pact and would focus his energies on mobilising young people to vote in the next year’s elections.
Speaking to eNCA, Baloyi said Xiluva will to be among the many political parties contesting in the upcoming general elections. He said it was too soon for the party to entangle itself in the moonshot pact after it was approached by the DA.
“When we received the call to form part of the conversation around the 2024 general election pact, we felt that it was premature. We are a party that is below six weeks of formation. We have got a lot of work to do to ensure we build the institutional capacity of the party, clarify to South Africans what our value proposition is going to be, and also determine what our interests are going to be,” he said.
Baloyi said Xiluva as the newest political party in the country sees itself as a vehicle for young people who want to lead.
“We see ourselves as an avenue to mobilise young people and we cannot be splitting our energy and time on side conversations bout the Moonshot pact towards 2024. No one knows how 2024 is going to be and we do not want to entangled with any party building up to 2024,” he said.
Baloyi’s comments come after United Democratic Movement also distanced itself from the pact, saying it will not be dictated to by the DA on how to approach the upcoming general elections after the latter urged other parties to isolate the ANC and EFF from the pact.
Meanwhile, ActionSA leader said it was not part of the pact after the DA announced that the party had agreed to be part of it.
Party leader Herman Mashaba said while the party was considering the move to be part of a multi-party coalition, there were still outstanding issues that needed to be addressed before ActionSA could fully commit to the pact.
“ActionSA is not yet part of this moonshot pact that John Steenhuisen is talking about,” Mashaba said.