Agang South Africa is a South African

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...

, first announced by anti-apartheid activist

Mamphela Ramphele Mamphela Aletta Ramphele (; born 28 December 1947) is a South African politician, an activist against apartheid, a medical doctor, an academic and businesswoman. She was a partner of anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, with whom she had two chil ...

on 18 February 2013, and founded on 22 June 2013, the date of the party's first official congress. The party encourages reforms towards direct governance, striving to "build a stronger democracy in which citizens will be at the centre of public life"; and challenged the governing

African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a Social democracy, social-democratic political party in Republic of South Africa, South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when ...

in the 2014 general election. The party ran again in the 2019 general election. ''Agang'' is a

Setswana Tswana, also known by its native name , and previously spelled Sechuana in English, is a Bantu language spoken in Southern Africa by about 8.2 million people. It belongs to the Bantu language family within the Sotho-Tswana branch of Zone ...

word meaning "let us build".

History

On 28 January 2014, the Democratic Alliance (DA) announced that Ramphele had accepted an invitation to stand as its presidential candidate in the 2014 general election, and the DA and Agang were set to merge. On 31 January 2014, Ramphele stated that she would not take up DA party membership and would remain the leader of Agang, resulting in confusion. On 2 February 2014,

Helen Zille Otta Helene Maree (''née'' Zille ; born 9 March 1951), known as Helen Zille, is a South African politician. She has served as the Chairperson of the Federal Council of the Democratic Alliance since 20 October 2019. From 2009 until 2019, she w ...

stated that Ramphele had reneged on her agreement to stand as the DA's presidential candidate. Ramphele subsequently apologised for the reversal of her decision, saying that the timing was not right as the reaction to it had shown people were unable to overcome race-based party politics. On 9 February 2014, following statements by Helen Zille that donor funding issues were behind the failed merger, Ramphele named business magnate

Nathan Kirsh Nathan "Natie" Kirsh (born 6 January 1932) is a South African born, Swazi billionaire businessman. He heads the Kirsh Group, which holds a majority stake in New York state cash and carry operation Jetro Holdings, owner of Restaurant Depot and ...

as a funder of Agang and said he would continue to fund the new party. In the 2014 election, the party received 52,350 votes, or 0.28% of the total, and won two seats in the

National Assembly of South Africa The National Assembly is the directly elected house of the Parliament of South Africa, located in Cape Town, Western Cape. It consists of four hundred members who are elected every five years using a party-list proportional representation syste ...

. Following internal conflict within the party, Ramphele announced her withdrawal from politics on 8 July 2014. Mike Tshishonga, one of the party's two MPs, was appointed acting president, but was expelled from the party in 2015 after being accused of misappropriating R80 000 of party funds, and then not attending the disciplinary hearing. He was replaced as president by the party's other MP, Andries Tlouamma. John McConnachie, party national spokesperson at the time of the 2014 election, claimed that Tlouamma and Tshishonga orchestrated a revolt against Ramphele in the aftermath of the party's poor results, resulting in her resignation, and that Tlouamma later engineered the expulsion of Tshishonga, replacing him in parliament with Koekoe Mahumapelo, an unknown member of his clique not listed on the Agang national list at the time of the elections. In the 2016 municipal elections, support for the party dropped to 0.01% nationally, and the party lost all of its seats in the 2019 general election.

Ideology

The following aims are listed on the party's website as of 2019: * Replace the current economic system with one that works for all South Africans. * Focus on improvement of education by various means, including: ** training teachers, ** increasing teacher salaries, ** improving and building libraries, ** filling teacher vacancies, and ** social grants to families with well-performing students. * Improve healthcare by various means, including: ** expanding training facilities, ** giving more control to local government, and ** increasing private sector operational ability in the industry. * Improve public service by: ** banning conflict of interest deals, ** protecting whistleblowers, ** training government officials in anticorruption best practices, and ** introducing a culture of transparency in government. * Improve safety and security by: ** boosting the police force budget, ** investing in policing research, ** de-militarising the police, ** redesigning police training, and ** introduction of open big data analytics in the policing and security sector.

Election results

National Assembly

, - ! Election ! Total votes ! Share of vote ! Seats ! +/– ! Government , - !

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...

, 52,350 , 0.28% , , – , , - !

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

, 13,856 , 0.08% , , 2 ,

Provincial elections

! rowspan=2 , Election ! colspan=2 ,

Eastern Cape The Eastern Cape is one of the provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, but its two largest cities are East London and Gqeberha. The second largest province in the country (at 168,966 km2) after Northern Cape, it was formed in ...

! colspan=2 , Free State ! colspan=2 ,

Gauteng Gauteng ( ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. The name in Sotho-Tswana languages means 'place of gold'. Situated on the Highveld, Gauteng is the smallest province by land area in South Africa. Although Gauteng accounts for only ...

! colspan=2 ,

Kwazulu-Natal KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN and known as "the garden province") is a province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu) and Natal Province were merged. It is locate ...

! colspan=2 ,

Limpopo Limpopo is the northernmost province of South Africa. It is named after the Limpopo River, which forms the province's western and northern borders. The capital and largest city in the province is Polokwane, while the provincial legislature is ...

! colspan=2 ,

Mpumalanga Mpumalanga () is a province of South Africa. The name means "East", or literally "The Place Where the Sun Rises" in the Swazi, Xhosa, Ndebele and Zulu languages. Mpumalanga lies in eastern South Africa, bordering Eswatini and Mozambique. It ...

! colspan=2 ,

North-West The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, Radius, radially arrayed compass directions (or Azimuth#In navigation, azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east ...

! colspan=2 ,

Northern Cape The Northern Cape is the largest and most sparsely populated province of South Africa. It was created in 1994 when the Cape Province was split up. Its capital is Kimberley. It includes the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park, part of the Kgalagadi T ...

! colspan=2 ,

Western Cape The Western Cape is a province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , and the third most populous, with an estimated 7 million inhabitants in 2020 ...

, - ! % !! Seats ! % !! Seats ! % !! Seats ! % !! Seats ! % !! Seats ! % !! Seats ! % !! Seats ! % !! Seats ! % !! Seats , - !

, 0.11% , , 0/63 , 0.20% , , 0/30 , 0.42% , , 0/73 , – , , – , 0.36% , , 0/49 , 0.13% , , 0/30 , 0.44% , , 0/33 , – , , – , 0.30% , , 0/42 , - !

, – , , – , 0.15%, , 0/30 , 0.07%, , 0/73 , – , , – , 0.16%, , 0/49 , 0.15%, , 0/30 , 0.21%, , 0/33 , – , , – , – , , –

Municipal elections

, - ! Election ! Votes ! % , - !

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...

, 5,493 , 0.01% , - !

2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October–November 2021 ...

, 1,569 , 0.01% , -

References

{{South Africa political parties 2013 establishments in South Africa Anti-corruption parties Centrist parties in South Africa Liberal parties in South Africa Political parties established in 2013 Political parties in South Africa Progressive parties