Is AfriForum a necessary irritation to the government and the ruling party?

 
Following successfully challenging wrong decisions by government many people, especially blacks see the lobby group as a necessary irritation that holds the government and ruling party to account.
 
Since they were formed in 2006 Afriforum have been painted the ‘bad guys’ and anti-black but are they real that bad? 
 
AfriForum is a non-profit civil rights organisation that was established on 26 March 2006. The organisation was created with the aim to call up Afrikaners to participate in public debate and actions outside of the sphere of party politics. 
 
Over the years we have seen them force the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to do its work and prosecute Duduzane Zuma after they initially refused, when that happened the lobby group asked for nolle prosequi certificate for private prosecution.
 
The lobby group was also involved in the Senzo Meyiwa matter after the family requested their help, they also took government to court over the R50 million it pledged to Cuba.
 
Currently there is a mtter in constitutional court regarding the covid-19 regulations among many of the issues they attend to.
 
A look into what they members of this lobby group benefit is listed below:

Community projects

Community safety

Local government affairs

Environmental affairs

Youth

Health

Culture and tourism
While others have linked them with running the country from behind, labeling ANC as puppets. 
 
Afrifrom’s Head of Policy, Ernst Roets denied that Afriforum is fronting the ANC in running the country.
 
“AfriForum is not trying country and I don’t think it’s fair to conclude such. AfriForum works to ensure a future for our members. We do this by campaigning against government policies that we regard as destructive to our community, such as race discrimination, the threat to property rights and the no-care attitude towards farm murders, and also building institution through which our members can secure a future.

If AfriForum was running the country, there wouldn’t be BEE, dodgy donations to Cuba and so forth. That said, we are a civil rights group with a focus on community work, operating outside the realm of party politics. So we have no intention of running the country.”
 
He further stated that AfriForum is open for everyone regardless of their race. 
 
“AfriForum is an inclusive Afrikaner organisation. We are not a political party where members decide what our policies are, but an NGO that pursues certain policy positions and recruits members for out cause. We are in continual conversation with our members through our branches and members conferences. Our policy positions are however based on our Civil Rights Manifesto, which was published when AfriForum was launched in 2006 and is available on our website.
 
We don’t ask race on our members forms, so we don’t know how many of our members are black. We can however clearly see an increase in support from the black community.” He added.
 
When asked if Afriforum is trying to irritate the government Roets said, “The point is not to irritate government. The ANC works according to what they call the “balance of power”.
This implies that it’s necessary to have strong institutions – especially outside the realm of party politics – to counter destructive policy ideas.
 
Despite building a University in Pretoria,
 
AfriForum is part of the broader Solidarity Movement, which is a group of more than 25 institutions. This includes AfriForum, AfriForumTV, Solidarity, the Solidarity Helping Hand, the FAK, Akademia, Sol-Tech and many others.
 
For more on what this lobby group does please visit their website www.afriforum.co.za/en
 
This is a developing story.
 
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