United Democratic Movement

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

United Democratic Movement , abbreviated to UDM (German: "United Democratic Movement"), is a South African party.

The party's orientation is social democratic with an emphasis on moral values. It has its first mainstay in the Eastern Cape Province , the home of Bantu Holomisa ; in other provinces it has achieved little importance. After the first election in 1999, the party continuously lost importance in the following two national elections, but in the parliamentary elections of 2014 it was able to improve in percentage terms at a low level, even if its importance is still marginal.

history

The party was founded in 1997 by Roelf Meyer , Bantu Holomisa and John Taylor . Meyer was minister for the National Party under Frederik Willem de Klerk as well as under Nelson Mandela , Holomisa after a military coup from 1987 to 1994 president of the homeland Transkei and then a member of the ANC , but was then expelled from his party. Taylor was a member of the ANC's Regional Executive Committee (REC). Holomisa took over the chairmanship, while Meyer became its deputy.

UDM started with the claim to be a party for all South Africans of all origins and races. In the national elections of 1999 , they entered parliament. In January 2000, however, Meyer left the party, retired from politics for a few years and finally joined the ANC in 2006. Holomisa, on the other hand, has remained the party chairman to this day. In 2002, UDM made a name for itself with the constitutional lawsuit against floor crossing , but ultimately could not prevent its legalization. A direct consequence of this was that at the beginning of 2003, in the first time window in which the floor crossing was possible, 10 of the 14 MPs left the party and mostly joined the ANC. Despite these events, UDM was able to move back into parliament in the 2004 elections (albeit with significant losses) . Since 2009 , the party has been represented in parliament by four members, including Holomisa. She was able to defend this in 2014 , but continued to lose votes in the 2019 elections in South Africa and only received two parliamentary seats.

Election results

Choice of ... percent Seats
1999 3.42% 14th
2004 2.28% 9
2009 0.85% 4th
2014 1.00% 4th
2019 0.45% 2

Web links