The Poor People's Alliance Outside the Constitutional Court 14 May 2009

The Poor People's Alliance is a network of radical

grassroots A grassroots movement is one that uses the people in a given district, region or community as the basis for a political or economic movement. Grassroots movements and organizations use collective action from the local level to effect change at t ...

movements in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

. It was formed in 2008 after the Action Alliance, formed in December 2006, was expanded to include two more

organisations An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose. The word is derived from ...

. The following

are members of the alliance: #

Abahlali baseMjondolo Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM, , in English: "the residents of the shacks") is a socialist shack dwellers' movement in South Africa which organises land occupations, builds communes

in the

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...

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 ...

. #Abahlali baseMjondolo in the

of the

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 ...

. #The

Landless People's Movement The Landless People's Movement was an independent social movement in South Africa. It consisted of rural people and people living in shack settlements in cities. The Landless People's Movement boycotted parliamentary elections and had a history ...

in the province of

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 ...

. #The Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign in the province of the

. #The Rural Network of

. The Poor People's Alliance refuses

electoral An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operated ...

politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...

and resolved to

boycott A boycott is an act of nonviolent, voluntary abstention from a product, person, organization, or country as an expression of protest. It is usually for moral, social, political, or environmental reasons. The purpose of a boycott is to inflict som ...

the 2009 national elections under the slogan "

No Land! No House! No Vote! No Land! No House! No Vote! is the name of a campaign by a number of poor people's movements in South Africa that calls for the boycotting of the vote and a general rejection of party politics and vote banking. The name is meant to imply that i ...

". The Poor People's Alliance has supported the struggle of the

eMacambini eMacambini is a rural area in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa which is mostly populated by members of the Macambini clan. It is near Mandeni on the Zululand coast, just north of Durban and close to the new King Shaka International Airp ...

Community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, tow ...

against mass eviction by Ruwaad Holdings and KwaZulu-Natal Premier S'bu Ndebele and the

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 ...

Provincial

Government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...

of KwaZulu-Natal.

International links

The Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign states that it has been influenced by the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign and the Poor People's Alliance.February "Rent Party" Fundraiser for Freedom
''Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign''

Notes and references

{{Political history of South Africa Social movements in South Africa Homelessness organizations Housing in South Africa Shack dwellers' movements Affordable housing advocacy organizations Political advocacy groups in South Africa Squatters' movements