DURBAN - The name South Africa is just a geographical direction and must be changed.
This is the view of President of the African Transformation Movement, Caesar Nongqunga.
ATM has unveiled its mayoral candidates for the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.
It promises to make deeper, meaningful change across the South African political landscape and society.
And contesting the election in all nine provinces on the 4th of November, is a start towards making its presence felt.
For ATM President Caesar Nongqunga, Azania is the ideal name.
"I’m very serious. You know, once you rob a person of his identity, you have committed a crime. You have committed a crime, and that crime is very serious. South Africans need to know who they are. They cannot be named after a location because this thing that says South Africa is just a location.
"If we are able to change the names of towns and airports, why can't we change this one so that we may understand and know who we are? That is all. It will need process. We are the process because we are the people, we are the community, we are the people who are feeling this pain. So, the process has already started by me saying it.”
With the local government polls just over a month away, Nongqunga said his party’s candidates will focus on water supply as their main service delivery priority.
“The first thing that you must be sure of is the provision of water and we have catered for that. The second thing is the infrastructure, and the third thing is to build the capacity to repair or to maintain the infrastructure; those are the things that I think are main. Others will be done because they overlap, trying to make sure that the sport is encouraged in each and every place, especially in towns, townships, and rural areas.”
Nongqunga is not ruling out cooperation with other like-minded parties.
He says the ATM is willing to enter into coalitions in councils where there are no outright winners.