ACDP Leader Kenneth Meshoe Reflects on 1994 Elections and Founding of Party

In 1994, the first democratic election, the ballot paper featured 19 political parties contesting the polls. Over the years, with a maturing democracy, the number of political parties on the ballot paper has mushroomed.

On Wednesday, the country will have its seventh democratic election, and there will be 52 political parties to choose from on the national ballot paper.

Among the 52 party leaders to choose from will be the leader of the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP), whose face was on the ballot paper in 1994.

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On the 1994 ballot paper, then-40-year-old Kenneth Meshoe rocked a pitch-black afro. Thirty years later, aged 70, he sat down with News24 to speak about the formation of the ACDP and the experience of participating as a political party leader in the first democratic elections in South Africa.

Born into a Christian home, Meshoe says his parents discouraged him from joining any of the parties who were part of the liberation struggle – including the ANC or the PAC – because they «did not agree with the attempts to change government violently».

He says his father, a police officer, believed everyone had to be «obedient to the laws of the country and just pray». «And as we prayed, God would answer our prayers in good time. So, he did not believe in violence; I did not believe in violence. I said change has to come through negotiations; people must talk and not fight. So, I was never involved with that,» he says.

However, when the winds of change began blowing, and it became evident that South Africa would finally be free from the shackles of the apartheid regime, he started thinking of how he could be involved in a new democratic South Africa but still keep his values as a Christian.

He admits that he grew up under the doctrine, in church, that Christians must not be involved in politics because it was «wrong», and politics was a «dirty game».

However, he tells News24 that when he began reading the Bible closely, he understood that politics was not, in fact, a «dirty game,» as the church taught had him, but it was «people in politics who have dirty actions». Meshoe says this revelation propelled him to look for a «Christian party,» but he could not find one.

«And therefore, we decided to start our own,» he says.

Central to him and his friends from a church he had established, forming a political party was to ensure that the Christian voice would be included in the country’s Constitution when it was later drafted. His fears were that a constitution would «undermine God,» whom he believed needed to bless the country’s future.

In December 1993, a few months before the first democratic elections in April, Meshoe and his friends launched the ACDP. His parents, staunch Christians, supported his move. «They said, ‘as long as there is not going to be any violence, it’s fine,’ and they gave me their blessings,» he says.

«My parents were very understanding. My father hated disobedience and rebellion, and as long as you obeyed his instructions and the teaching of the scriptures, he was happy. So he did not see any form of rebellion in what I was doing, and that is why he gave his green light.»

That is how the teacher-turned-pastor began his political career and was among those who made history by contesting the first democratic elections in South Africa.