The Independent Democrats (ID) was a South African political party, formed by former

Pan Africanist Congress The Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (known as the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC)) is a South African national liberation Pan-Africanist movement that is now a political party. It was founded by an Africanist group, led by Robert Sobukwe, that ...

member Patricia de Lille in 2003 via floor crossing legislation. The party's platform was premised on opposition to corruption, with a mixture of liberal principles and strategies for improving equity. The party's strongholds were the Northern and Western Cape. On 15 August 2010, the party announced plans to merge with the larger Democratic Alliance as part of a plan to challenge the governing

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

(ANC). The party disbanded as a separate political organization in 2014.

2009 election manifesto

Ahead of the national

elections 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 opera ...

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

, the ID launched a manifesto promising that, if elected to power, they would increase the staffing of the

South African Police Service The South African Police Service (SAPS) is the national police force of the Republic of South Africa. Its 1,154 police stations in South Africa are divided according to the provincial borders, and a Provincial Commissioner is appointed in ea ...

to 200,000, enlist 5,000 caseworkers to operate in crime-stricken communities, make South Africa a leader in renewable energy and finance a minimum social grant by taxing

luxury goods In economics, a luxury good (or upmarket good) is a good for which demand increases more than what is proportional as income rises, so that expenditures on the good become a greater proportion of overall spending. Luxury goods are in contrast to ...

, tobacco and alcohol. In addition they vowed that an "ID government would fire a minister whose department received a qualified audit two years in a row."

Merger with DA

In 2010, then-ID leader Patricia de Lille formalized an agreement to merge with the Democratic Alliance. The two parties merged by 2014. Due to this, the ID did not contest the 2011 local elections as a separate entity, instead fielding its candidates on the DA's ballots. In February 2012, the-then Leader of the Official Opposition,

Lindiwe Mazibuko Lindiwe Mazibuko (born 9 April 1980) is a Swazi-born South African academic, former politician, musician and the former leader of the Official Opposition Democratic Alliance (DA). She was elected DA Parliamentary Leader on 27 October 2011, be ...

, reshuffled her shadow cabinet, which included appointing members of the ID to shadow portfolios for the first time. This was seen as a move towards strengthening the co-operation between the two parties heading towards the completion of the merger.

Election results

National elections

Municipal elections

References

;General * Hartley, Aziz. "ID releases election manifesto." ''

Cape Times The ''Cape Times'' is an English-language morning newspaper owned by Independent News & Media SA and published in Cape Town, South Africa. the newspaper had a daily readership of 261 000 and a circulation of 34 523. By the fourth quarter of ...

'', 2 February

2009 in literature This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 2009. Events *April 21 – UNESCO launches the World Digital Library. *May 1 – Carol Ann Duffy is appointed Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, the first woman ...

: 4.

External links

Independent Democrats
(official site) {{Political history of South Africa Democratic Alliance (South Africa) Liberal parties in South Africa Defunct liberal political parties Defunct political parties in South Africa Political parties established in 2003 Political parties disestablished in 2014 Political parties in South Africa created by floor crossing 2003 establishments in South Africa 2014 disestablishments in South Africa