The Independent Democrats (ID) was founded by Patricia de Lille in 2003 and was the first political party in South Africa to be led by a woman, contest elections and win seats. The ID has support and leadership from all communities and has 138 councillors throughout our country and has won 10 by-elections in the last year. In the last national election the ID won seats in many parts of the country resulting in 8 Members of Parliament and 6 Members of Provincial Parliament. The ID also has Mayors, Deputy Mayors, Mayco members, Sub-council Chairpersons and Speakers in several councils across the country.

This manifesto is about you. It is about fighting for your rights and finding solutions to your problems. The ID wants a South Africa that allows you to live your life fully and freely, where you can realise your dreams. A South Africa free from poverty, crime, abuse and unemployment, where you are given excellent healthcare, the dignity that comes with having a home and the opportunities that come with education.

The ID has built a consistent track record in speaking truth to power on the most important challenges facing our country. What is important to us is fighting for the right thing irrespective of who we have to take on. In addition, our approach is and always has been a positive one, of finding solutions.

We believe in people-centred development, where leaders listen to you and give you the opportunity to be involved in decisions about the development of your community, town and city. Wherever we govern, that is our approach.

Remember that no vote is wasted because we have a `proportional representation’ system of voting, which means that every vote counts. A vote for the ID will not be wasted or split the opposition. On the contrary, when you vote for the ID you will be strengthening the opposition, because a vote for the ID will increase our representation in parliament, adding to our strong and principled voice of fighting for your rights and offering solutions.

By voting for the ID you vote for the vision and solutions in this manifesto. It’s a vote that will fight for you and offer solutions to your problems.

Our manifesto is filled with solutions that will improve your life and build a great South Africa. Below is a summary of our Top Ten Solutions from our manifesto:

1) Provide a Minimum Income Grant funded through taxation on luxury goods and sin taxes. This grant would be provided to all poor South Africans so that nobodyfalls through the social security net. It would lift millions out of poverty and stimulate local economies and businesses by channelling money into resource deprived communities. This would give all South Africans a stake in our economy and help end the cycle of social decay, despair and violence that so many communities experience.

2) Create jobs by massively boosting small business development and tackling youth unemployment (which is currently at 70 percent) by providing wage subsidies to work seekers between the ages of 18 to 25. This would have the effect of giving businesses a real incentive to hire first-time work seekers. The ID would decrease the costs of doing business by cutting red tape and providing quality infrastructure such as affordable telecommunications and public transport.

3) Position South Africa as a world leader in renewable energy and create thousands of jobs. The ID would build a sustainable energy future, which achieves the twin objectives of energy security while reducing our contribution to global climate change. We would achieve this by democratizing energy through ending Eskom’s monopoly by opening up the grid and giving feed-in tariffs for renewable energy. The ID would position South Africa as the world leader in solar energy, by giving production incentives, scaling up investment in Research and Development and crafting an industrial policy that can support industries across the value chain and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs.

4) Fight Crime by boosting the Police Service to 200 000 and employing 5000 more social workers to address the socio-economic problems in our communities, which are creating the conditions for drug-abuse, teenage pregnancy and crime to flourish.

5) Extend the rollout of ARV’s, introduce National Health Insurance and fill the 55 000 vacancies in the Health Sector to ensure that everyone has access to quality and affordable health care.

6) Provide all schools with infrastructure within 2 to 5 years, improve teaching and introduce a Child Education Grant. Within two years we would ensure that every school has access to electricity, water and sanitation and within five years every school has a library, functioning science laboratory and free internet connectivity. Teachers would be given training, performance bonuses and those that are unwilling or unable to teach our children would be taken out of the system. The ID would introduce a Child Education Grant for poor learners at both primary and secondary school which would cover school fees, transport and uniforms.

7) Institute a comprehensive rural development strategy that rolls out basic services, supports farmers and builds local rural markets. The ID would no longer allow you to be treated as a second class citizen if you live in the rural areas. Currently 60 percent of South Africans who are living in poverty reside in rural areas and are disadvantaged by not having access to basic services such as water, sanitation, electricity and access to emergency medical care.

8) Cut wasteful government expenditure on the Arms and Nuclear industry and save the taxpayer billions. The Government has already spent R8 billion on the PBMR nuclear experiment with nothing to show for it, and has subsidised the arms manufacturer Denel to the tune of R5 billion. The government has plans to squander a further R12 billion on the PBMR along with R700 billion on conventional nuclear power over the next 20 years. The ID says taxpayer’s money must be used more effectively to create jobs and invest in sustainable energy sources.

9) Fill all vacancies in the public service and fire incompetent officials and Ministers that fail to deliver. The ID would fire Ministers if their departments roll-over budgets or if they receive qualified audits for two years in a row.

10) Continue to fight for the realisation of constitutional rights, especially those of the poor, people with disabilities, women and children. The ID will continue its strong fight against corruption and for politically independent institutions, and would reinstitute the Scorpions and set up a Commission of Inquiry into the Arms Deal.

The Independent Democrats. Fighting for your rights, offering solutions.

Be a part of the solution. Vote ID.

This is a summary. Download the full Manifesto below

For more information about the ID
  you can email info@id.org.za or call 021 403 8696