Member of Freedom Front Plus Pieter Groenewald left and Dr Corne Mulder on the right. The party is accused of being racist. | Michael Walker Independent Newspapers
When Lennit Max joined the Freedom Front Plus (FF+), he publicly pronounced that he found the party to be a multiracial one, so his allegations are unfounded, spokesperson Wouter Wessels said on Wednesday.
The party served every member regardless of creed, ethnicity and colour, and testament of that was the party making inroads in different communities across the country, he said.
“Max was elected as a councillor for the party in the metro; elected caucus leader in which capacity he has served since 2021 and he was recently elected as the deputy chairperson of the party in the Western Cape.
“That does not speak to exclusion or racism,” Wessels said. “Rather the contrary.
“He, however, has a record of changing political alliances regularly and always blaming the party from where he jumps.
“This is once again the case and can't just be a coincidence,” he added.
Wessels was responding to allegations levelled against the party and the Western Cape premier candidate Corne Mulder of being racist by the now resigned Max.
Max made this starling allegations when he announced his resignation from the party.
He accused the party of prioritising the interests of Afrikaners to the exclusion of other race groups.
Wessels said Max’s assertions of the party prioritising other ethnic groups over others were far from the truth. The party had a clear policies which sought to advance the interests of all groups and communities.
Max’s departure did not hamper the party’s electorate of coloured voters, he said.Their support in the community remained overwhelming in coloured communities.
On the question of whether the FF+ was an exclusive white organisation, Wessels said that was not the case because in the Western Cape the party was being represented by different ethnic groups.
“We are not exclusively white. Our member in the Western Cape Legislature is not white. We promote values and plans that resonate well with members from various communities.
“Our manifesto and policies provide real solutions and advancing equal access to opportunities for all,” Wessels said.
Max is a former Western Cape police commissioner and former member of the DA and the Independent Democrats, who also had a brief stint as an adviser to Police Minister Bheki Cele.
He joined the FF+ party in August 2021 ahead of that year’s local government elections and became its mayoral candidate for the City of Cape Town.
The Star
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