LFN Says Enough: Why We Back CAPEXIT and OHM — and Why the DA Has Lost Our Trust

Excerpt: LFN has made its choice for the coming local government elections. In the Western Cape, we support CAPEXIT, while across the rest of South Africa, we support the Organic Humanity Movement (OHM). This is not about blind political allegiance — it is about supporting alternatives that seek to return power to communities, strengthen public participation and make government accountable to the people it is supposed to serve. We also explain why LFN has lost trust in both the ANC and DA, and why South Africans should stop believing they are limited to the same political choices election after election.

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For many years, Liberty Fighters Network has deliberately kept its distance from party politics.

We are not the ANC. We are not the DA. We are not the EFF, ActionSA, the Freedom Front Plus or anybody else’s political foot soldiers.

LFN belongs to the people.

Our loyalty has always been to liberty, constitutional accountability, meaningful public participation and the ordinary person standing on the wrong side of a government department, municipality, bank, corporation or other powerful institution.

That independence will not change.

But independence does not require silence.

With the next local government elections approaching, South Africans will again be asked to decide who should control the municipalities that determine so much of their everyday lives: their property rates, water, electricity, refuse collection, town planning, development approvals, environmental management, municipal policing, by-laws and — increasingly — what people may or may not do with their own properties.

LFN has therefore decided that it is time to say publicly where we stand.

In the Western Cape, LFN supports the Cape Independence Party — CAPEXIT.

In the remainder of South Africa, LFN supports the Organic Humanity Movement — OHM.

Not because either organisation has been given a blank cheque by LFN.

Not because we agree with every sentence ever spoken by every member of either organisation.

And certainly not because LFN intends becoming subordinate to any political party.

We support them because, when we look beyond slogans and compare their proposed systems of government with what LFN has been fighting for in the real world, CAPEXIT and OHM come considerably closer than the established political parties to putting political power back where it belongs: in the hands of the people.

Local government has forgotten who the employer is

Something has gone seriously wrong with South African democracy.

Citizens elect governments and pay for those governments through taxes, rates and service charges. Yet once politicians and officials obtain power, residents are increasingly treated as though they must answer to government.

People submit objections.

Government ignores them.

Communities participate in consultation processes.

Government “notes” their concerns and proceeds anyway.

Ratepayers complain that something is unaffordable.

Government sends them another bill.

Residents oppose developments, valuations, policies or projects.

Government commissions consultants, lawyers and senior counsel — paid for with those same residents’ money — to defend itself against them.

This inversion of democracy lies at the heart of what LFN fights every day.

And it is precisely here where both CAPEXIT and OHM offer something fundamentally different.

Why CAPEXIT in the Western Cape?

CAPEXIT’s 2026 manifesto calls its approach the “CAPEXIT Guarantee — Local Communities First”.

More importantly, it attempts to turn those words into an obligation upon its candidates. Every CAPEXIT candidate is expected to sign a community agreement requiring that candidate to represent the interests of voters, residents, ratepayers and taxpayers and to engage with community organisations and public-participation processes. Cape-Independence-Party-CAPEXIT…

That immediately caught LFN’s attention.

Because public participation should never be a ceremonial exercise conducted simply because some statute requires an advertisement to appear in a newspaper.

Public participation must have consequences.

If thousands of residents say “no”, politicians should not automatically respond with: “Thank you for your input. We have decided to do it anyway.”

CAPEXIT goes further. Its manifesto advocates direct democracy through referendum, citizen initiative, nullification and recall. Political power, in its own words, should be localised in the hands of the individuals affected by government decisions. Cape-Independence-Party-CAPEXIT…

Recall is particularly important. Under CAPEXIT’s proposed model, if a politician ceases serving the interests of the community, the public should have a mechanism to remove that politician rather than waiting helplessly for another election cycle. Cape-Independence-Party-CAPEXIT…

Whether somebody supports full Cape independence, greater Western Cape autonomy, federalism or neither is a debate considerably wider than one local election.

You do not have to decide the entire Cape-independence question before recognising the value of making councillors answerable to communities rather than party headquarters.

That is where LFN sees immediate common ground.

And there is another reason.

CAPEXIT did not merely talk about supporting civil society

LFN measures people and organisations not only by what they promise at election time, but by what they do when there is no election poster to be gained from it.

CAPEXIT has already politically supported LFN in our litigation concerning the Cape Peninsula baboons.

That matters.

When LFN took a stand in circumstances where doing so was neither politically easy nor institutionally popular, CAPEXIT was prepared to associate itself with the cause.

That distinguishes political friendship based on principle from political friendship based on convenience.

Why OHM for the rest of South Africa?

OHM comes at the problem from a different direction, but reaches many of the same conclusions.

The opening proposition in its local-government manifesto could almost have been written for LFN:

government should return to its rightful place as subservient to the people. OHM Local Government Manifesto

That principle runs through its proposals.

OHM identifies unaffordable rates and taxes, failing infrastructure, oversized metros, weak public consultation, councillors beholden to party structures, corruption and the growing distance between communities and decision-makers as central local-government problems. OHM Local Government Manifesto

Its proposed solution is not merely to replace one political party with another.

It proposes changing the architecture of government itself.

OHM advocates smaller, more autonomous regions in which decision-making power is brought closer to residents rather than concentrated ever further away from them. Its model envisages local regions with substantially greater power and communities with correspondingly greater influence over how they are governed. OHM Local Government Manifesto

It also proposes mechanisms which should make established political parties distinctly uncomfortable: councillor recall, directly elected mayors, smaller wards and ultimately replacing party domination with independently elected representatives. OHM Local Government Manifesto

There is also practical substance in its immediate municipal programme.

OHM proposes ongoing consultation with residents on major municipal decisions, greater tender transparency, municipal financial audits, protection for whistleblowers, using savings to reduce property rates and taxes, infrastructure audits and incentives such as rebates for households investing in solar power and rainwater systems. OHM Local Government Manifesto

That is an important distinction.

It is easy to complain about government.

It is considerably harder to explain how you intend changing the relationship between government and citizen.

OHM at least attempts to do that.

To its credit, OHM also acknowledges that several of its proposed structural changes cannot simply be implemented by a municipal council and would ultimately require change at national level. That kind of acknowledgement matters. Voters should be told what a municipality can actually do and what requires broader constitutional or legislative reform. OHM Local Government Manifesto

And then there is the DA

This part will make some people uncomfortable.

So be it.

For years, South Africans have been told that the political choice is essentially between the ANC and the DA.

LFN rejects that false choice.

The fact that the ANC has failed disastrously in many areas does not automatically make the DA trustworthy.

LFN judges governments by what they actually do when citizens challenge them.

And our experience with the DA has destroyed whatever political confidence we might once have been expected to place in it.

From LFN’s experience, the DA has demonstrated a deeply troubling hostility towards public-interest organisations that challenge DA-controlled government.

We have watched a party that publicly sells itself as liberal, constitutional and accountable become fiercely defensive the moment civil society questions the legality, rationality or fairness of decisions taken under its administration.

And when challenged?

The DA-controlled state does not have to reach into its own pocket.

It can reach into yours.

Ratepayers fund the municipality.

The municipality funds the lawyers.

The lawyers fight the ratepayers and public-interest organisations challenging the municipality.

And if the litigation continues, more ratepayers’ money can be spent defending the very government those ratepayers are attempting to hold accountable.

Think about the absurdity of that arrangement.

A pensioner can struggle to pay escalating municipal rates while the municipality uses public funds to brief legal teams against organisations fighting issues affecting that very public.

LFN has experienced enough of this to reach its own conclusion:

we do not trust the DA merely because it is not the ANC.

A different colour logo does not guarantee a different philosophy of power.

When government becomes more concerned with defending its authority than listening to those it governs, it has forgotten why it exists.

When political parties regard independent civic organisations as enemies because those organisations refuse to bow to them, something has gone badly wrong.

And when public money becomes ammunition in battles against the public itself, citizens should ask whether this still resembles accountable government at all.

The ANC does not receive a pass from us.

Neither does the DA.

This is bigger than Cape independence or another small political party

Some readers will immediately dismiss CAPEXIT because they oppose Cape independence.

Others may dismiss OHM because it is not one of the large parties.

That would miss the point of what LFN is saying.

South Africa desperately needs political competition.

Councils need independent voices.

Dominant parties need councillors sitting across the chamber who are willing to ask the question nobody in the governing caucus wants asked.

Even a relatively small number of principled councillors can demand information, scrutinise budgets, oppose abusive policies, expose questionable decisions, support affected communities and prevent council chambers from becoming rubber stamps for party headquarters.

Democracy becomes dangerous when voters believe they have only two choices.

The ANC is not entitled to your vote because of history.

The DA is not entitled to your vote merely because it opposes the ANC.

Every party must earn public trust.

Repeatedly.

What CAPEXIT and OHM have in common with LFN

LFN’s work has always rested upon a fairly simple proposition:

authority must justify itself to the people subjected to it.

CAPEXIT’s manifesto says political power should be returned to “the voter, the taxpayer, the citizen”, and couples that philosophy with direct-democracy mechanisms and candidate commitments to communities. Cape-Independence-Party-CAPEXIT…

OHM says government should be subordinate to citizens and proposes decentralisation specifically so that residents gain greater influence and representatives become easier to hold directly accountable. OHM Local Government Manifesto OHM Local Government Manifesto

Those concepts should sound familiar to Liberators.

They are extraordinarily close to what LFN has argued for years:

Respect authority — but never permit authority to disrespect you.

Our support is not unconditional

CAPEXIT and OHM should understand something equally clearly.

LFN is not joining either party.

We are not surrendering our independence.

They do not own us.

We do not owe them silence.

And our support does not place either organisation beyond scrutiny.

If CAPEXIT enters government and begins behaving towards communities the way established parties have behaved, LFN will challenge CAPEXIT.

If OHM representatives obtain power and forget the principles upon which they sought election, LFN will challenge OHM.

The same standard must apply to everybody.

That is precisely the kind of relationship civil society should have with political organisations.

Support what is right.

Oppose what is wrong.

And never surrender the independence required to tell the difference.

South Africa does not need another political master

It needs public servants who remember the meaning of the word servant.

It needs councillors who fear disappointing their communities more than they fear disappointing their party leaders.

It needs governments that understand that public participation is not theatre.

It needs ratepayers who are treated as citizens rather than revenue streams.

It needs political competition.

And it desperately needs ordinary people to rediscover that government belongs to them — not the other way around.

That is why, for the coming local government elections, LFN believes CAPEXIT deserves support and representation in the Western Cape, while OHM deserves support and representation in municipalities throughout the rest of South Africa.

We have seen enough of what the political establishment offers.

South Africans should at least be willing to look seriously at those proposing to change the relationship between government and governed — instead of merely changing the politicians sitting at the top.

LFN will continue fighting outside government.

Perhaps it is time to place more people inside government who understand why that fight exists in the first place.

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