Six-year logging ban ended in Kenya

Kenya's president has ended the 6-year ban on logging in the country. 

Kenya Lifts Logging Ban, Promising Jobs and Growth | Reason | William Rampe:

July 10, 2023 - "On July 2, Kenya's president ended an almost six-year moratorium on logging in the country's public and community forests.  'We can't have mature trees rotting in forests while locals suffer due to lack of timber. That's foolishness,' President William Ruto explained during a church service. 'This is why we have decided to open up the forest and harvest timber so that we can create jobs for our youth and open up business.'

"In 2018, when he was deputy president, Ruto announced a 90-day ban in order 'to allow reassessment and rationalisation of the entire forest sector.' The government regularly extended the ban as part of an effort to limit illegal logging and prevent the lowering of Kenya's water levels. 

"While lifting the ban, Ruto is maintaining Kenya's goal of planting 15 billion trees over the next 10 years. The Kenya Forest Service (KFS) has also set rules for harvesting in gazetted forests, including requiring loggers to acquire entry and exit certificates.

'Some of the areas, in the Great Rift Valley for example, used to be hubs for timber production,' says Lubanga Makanji, who teaches environment and resource development at Egerton University in Kenya. 'And that means that there were wood processors that would provide employment for the local community. As soon as the moratorium came into place, those jobs were lost.' According to the Kenya Forestry Research Institute, the 2018 ban led to the loss of approximately 44,000 jobs and $28 million in revenue, bringing economic collapse to communities that relied on the logging industry.

"Ruto's decision has set off a storm of environmentalist anger, with activists accusing Kenya of favoring economic development over its climate goals. John Kioli, the executive director of the Green Africa Foundation, told the Associated Press that ... lifting the ban would 'undermine all efforts to put Kenya on a low-carbon trajectory.' 'By lifting this ban president Ruto has prioritised profit over people and nature,' said Tracy Makhet of Greenpeace Africa in a press release....  

"But the ban is still in effect for indigenous forests. The lifted portion of the ban applies to trees in plantation forests, which should be felled when the trees reach rotation age, Makanji says....'We have a community that is also engaged in tree planting within these gazetted government forests. So to me, there shouldn't be any environmental impact.'

"Furthermore, it's far from clear that the moratorium substantially reduced illegal logging. In a 2004 study, Makanji and Haruyuki Mochida of the University of Tsukuba found that a previous ban did not prevent illegal logging in the Kakamega forest. 'As wood shortage bites, the price of sawn timber has risen hence creating a major incentive for illegal extraction,' explained the authors.... 

"By bringing property rights to the forest, Kenya could ensure that its trees are both conserved and used depending on the utility they bring to Kenyans, as determined by price signals. A 2000 paper on forest conservation in Kenya's Mt. Elgon National Park, written by Esther Mwangie of Indiana University and Paul Ongugo and Jane Njuguna of the Kenya Forest Research Institute, found that the 'institutional flexibility' of 'according claimant rights to local communities' can 'create incentives that encourage communities to take long term benefits and short term costs into account when making decisions.'"

Read more: https://reason.com/2023/07/10/kenya-lifts-logging-ban-promising-jobs-and-growth/

Pres. Ruto lifts 6-year ban on logging | NTV Kenya | July 2, 2023:

Ugandan president signs Anti-Homosexuality Bill

 Uganda president signs anti-LGBTQ bill, which includes death penalty provisions, into law | CBC News - Thomson Reuters:

May 29, 2023 - "Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni has signed one of the world's toughest anti-LGBTQ laws, including the death penalty for 'aggravated homosexuality,' in defiance of Western condemnations and potential sanctions from aid donors. Same-sex relations were already illegal in Uganda, as in more than 30 African countries, but the new law goes much further. It imposes capital punishment for some behaviour, including transmitting a terminal illness like HIV/AIDS through gay sex, and stipulates a 20-year sentence for 'promoting' homosexuality.

"The Ugandan president has today legalized state-sponsored homophobia and transphobia," said Clare Byarugaba, a Ugandan rights activist. "It's a very dark and sad day for the LGBTIQ community, our allies and all of Uganda.' She and other activists have vowed to launch a legal challenge to the law.... One group of activists and academics later on Monday petitioned the constitutional court seeking an injunction against enforcement of the law.

"A less-restrictive 2014 anti-LGBTQ law was struck down by a domestic court on procedural grounds, after Western governments had initially suspended some aid, imposed visa restrictions and curtailed security co-operation. Uganda receives billions of dollars in foreign aid each year and could now face another round of sanctions.

"The White House condemned the bill after it was first passed in March, and on Monday, U.S. President Joe Biden  ... said the U.S. National Security Council will be evaluating the implications on 'all aspects of U.S. engagement with Uganda,' including Washington's ability to safely deliver services under The U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), its flagship HIV/AIDS program. In a joint statement on Monday, PEPFAR, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) said the law put Uganda's fight against HIV/AIDS 'in grave jeopardy'....

"The European Union reiterated a condemnation from March, while the United Nations human rights body said the law was a recipe for systematic violation of Ugandans' rights.... The British government said on Monday it was 'appalled' at the Ugandan government's new law and that it's firmly opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances.... Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly called the law 'abhorrent, cruel and unjust.'

"Uganda's move could encourage lawmakers in other countries on the continent to follow suit. 'We're seeing similar patterns in other countries in the region. We've seen attacks on LGBTQ people in Burundi, very hostile rhetoric in Kenya and Tanzania from public figures and on social media. It's been extremely hostile,' Human Rights Watch researcher Oryem Nyeko told CBC's The Current in March.

"Museveni had sent the original bill back to lawmakers, asking that they tone down some provisions. The amended version stipulated that merely identifying as LGBTQ is not a crime and revised a measure that obliged people to report homosexual activity to only require reporting when a child is involved."

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/uganda-antigay-law-1.6857762

Ugandan President signs anti-gay Bill into Law | Citizen TV Kenya | May 29, 2023:

Ugandans jailed, killed for violating Covid orders

Ugandans to be jailed for violating Covid rules | BBC News - Patience Atuhaire:

July 4, 2021 - "Ugandans who violate the Covid pandemic control restrictions may go to jail for up to two months. According to new rules released by the health ministry in a statutory document, those found operating banned businesses such as bars, night clubs, cinemas and shops selling non-food items face time in prison.

"Current lockdown measures also restrict cultural ceremonies like weddings to only 20 people, and anyone found hosting a larger number might be jailed. Heads of households or owners of premises or property who fail to report people infected with Covid-19 to health officials may be imprisoned as well. Not wearing a mask outside of one’s residence or assisting someone to escape from quarantine, could land one in jail.

"Since the country first went into lockdown in March 2020, security forces have in some cases meted out violence on the public while enforcing control measures and several people have been killed."

Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-africa-47639452?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=60e2a64e7700c04e4db49da4%26Ugandans%20to%20be%20jailed%20for%20violating%20Covid%20rules%262021-07-05T07%3A57%3A29.748Z&ns_fee=0&pinned_post_locator=urn:asset:3fb024c3-ee80-4b94-b24f-a48b810d2edc&pinned_post_asset_id=60e2a64e7700c04e4db49da4&pinned_post_type=share 

Ugandans Face 2 Months’ Imprisonment for Violating COVID Laws | Voice of America - Halima Athumani:

July 03, 2021 - "[T]hrough July, anyone found praying in an open space or outside a church or a mosque, not wearing masks, hawking, street vending and selling nonfood items will be sentenced to two months in jail. Anyone found operating a bar or a movie theater, attending a seminar, cultural event or indoor sports event could face jail time if convicted.

"State minister for health Anifa Kawooya says the law is necessary. 'These penalties are not punishments. In one way, it is to instill attitude change,' said Kawooya. 'That the moment that you know that if I don’t observe these SOPs [standard operating procedures], this will happen.'

"The new law also prohibits entry of visitors from India, other than Ugandan citizens or residents. Anyone who aids in the escape of someone confined in a place designated for isolation or quarantine of COVID-19 can also be imprisoned for two months."

Read more: https://www.voanews.com/covid-19-pandemic/ugandans-face-2-months-imprisonment-violating-covid-laws

Some countries allow ivermectin use to treat Covid

Use of parasite medication to treat coronavirus patients approved in Slovakia | Slovak Spectator: 

January 27, 2021 - "Ivermectin, a medication used to treat many types of parasite infestations, can now be used to treat coronavirus patients in hospitals and obtained from pharmacies with a prescription. The Health Ministry approved the therapeutic use of this medication for six months. It will be used with other treatments, its spokesperson Zuzana Eliášová said, as reported by the TASR newswire.

"The medication can be legally imported to Slovakia and given to patients. With such a step, the ministry fulfilled the request of the association of Slovak anaesthetists, the Denník N daily reported. Until now, Ivermectin was officially approved to be used only for animals, which is why people generally buy it abroad."

Read more: https://spectator.sme.sk/c/22583299/use-of-parasite-medication-to-treat-coronavirus-patients-approved-in-slovakia.html

South Africa Allows Use of Parasite Drug in Covid Patients | Bloomberg - Janice Kew:

January 27, 2021 - "South African authorities approved the use of a drug used to control parasites in humans and livestock to treat coronavirus patients. The medicine, known as ivermectin, will be allowed for use on compassionate grounds in a controlled-access program, the head of the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority said Wednesday. Medical practitioners who apply to the regulator to use the drug will be considered on a case-by-case basis, Boitumelo Semete-Makokotlela said.

"Ivermectin has been used for decades to treat livestock infested with parasitic worms, while in humans it’s used as a topical ointment for diseases including skin infections and inflammation. The World Health Organization has suggested the drug has encouraging effects on coronavirus, though like other regulators it’s also said the medication hasn’t been properly evaluated. The drug won’t be limited to patients with known Covid-19 co-morbidities, Semete-Makokotlela said.

"The regulator is already seeing widespread use of ivermectin in an emerging black market, as South Africa grapples with a second wave of coronavirus infections that’s resulted in hospital admissions soaring and a shortage of critical-care beds. Allowing controlled use of the drug will help the regulator monitor its use and enable the body to collect much-needed safety data."

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-27/south-africa-allows-use-of-parasite-drug-to-treat-covid-patients

Zimbabwe OKs use of Ivermectin after officials' deaths | Anadolu Agency - John Cassim:

January 28, 2021 - "Zimbabwe has approved the use and import of the anti-parasite drug Ivermectin to treat COVID-19 patients. 

"'In these difficult times of COVID-19 treatment, we have to be careful to protect patients as well as not to deny them effective treatment regimes,” said a statement by the Health Ministry addressed to the Medicines Control Authority of Zimbabwe (MCAZ). 'It is in this regard, the authority is hereby granted for you to proceed to allow importation and use of these medicines under the supervision and guidance you outlined. Ivermectin can be evaluated for both treatment and prophylaxis,' the ministry said.

"This ministry’s decision comes a few days after the deaths of three cabinet ministers and several top government officials from COVID-19 in a short period of time. Owing to the fact that Ivermectin was not registered for use in Zimbabwe, COVID-19 patients ended up using the Ivermectin product meant for animals....

"Two weeks ago, the medicines control body threatened to arrest anyone found to be administering Ivermectin to humans."

Read more: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/zimbabwe-oks-use-of-ivermectin-after-officials-deaths/2125442

Governments imposing a 2nd wave of lockdowns

Localized lockdowns show that we're in the most complex phase of coronavirus yet | CNN - Emma Reynolds:

July 9, 2020 - "From English cities to the Spanish seaside and Australian housing estates, local lockdowns are cropping up all over the world as countries ease restrictions only to encounter new coronavirus outbreaks.... Beijing re-entered a partial lockdown in mid-June after a new coronavirus outbreak linked to a food market in the Chinese capital, while at least 24 states in the US are pausing or rolling back their reopenings as cases accelerate....

"The threshold for imposing new lockdowns as well as their size and scope varies dramatically between countries, from a single building in Italy, to several Rwandan villages, to a community of 200,000 in Spain's northeast and a coastal area of 70,000 in its northwest, to the whole of Israel. There are hopes this approach could minimize the economic damage resulting from large-scale shutdowns. In Portugal, for example, 19 boroughs on the outskirts of Lisbon have shut down, while the capital's downtown area has continued its reopening, along with the rest of the country.

"The German city of Guetersloh was put back into lockdown after 1,331 workers at its Toennies meat processing factory tested positive for the virus.... Guetersloh's lockdown was lifted Monday when a court in the state of North Rhine-Westfalia ruled that the regulation was 'no longer compatible with the principle of proportionality and the principle of equal treatment'....

"In the Italian city of Mondragone, authorities sealed off a building that housed migrant seasonal workers as a 'red zone' late last month after 49 people tested positive for Covid-19. The army was sent to monitor the hotspot and a group of workers living in the building broke the quarantine to protest.... And in Serbia, police in the capital Belgrade on Tuesday fired tear gas at protesters demonstrating against the President Aleksandar Vucic after he announced a weekend-long curfew to try to combat a surge in cases....

"The English city of Leicester returned to lockdown for two weeks from July 2, with non-essential businesses shutting, people advised to minimize social contact, and schools closed for most children, after a spike in cases there. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned that Leicester showed 'the virus is out there still circling like a shark in the water,' raising fears of further lockdowns in other UK areas with rising numbers of new cases....

"In the Australian state of Victoria, 6.6 million people have been isolated from the rest of the country for six weeks after Melbourne saw a record rise in daily case numbers. On Saturday, 3,000 residents of nine densely populated public housing estates were put under full lockdown and from Wednesday, residents in metropolitan Melbourne are no longer allowed to leave their homes, except for grocery shopping, caregiving, exercise or work. Victoria's border with New South Wales will close for the first time since the pandemic began....

"Israel has re-imposed strict limitations across the whole country, closing event halls, bars, gyms and pools after the country hit a record daily figure of 1,140 new infections. It is facing a near 40-fold increase in daily cases from mid-May, when the nation appeared to have the virus under control....

"[Alexander] Kekulé, the virology professor [of the Institute for Biosecurity Research in Germany], believes that large-scale reopening and then locking down again is a mistake, and risks causing psychological or economic damage to those affected. 'We need a reliable picture of our future [f]or the economy,' he told CNN. 'You cannot plan when you have the possibilities of lockdowns at any time. People will not do that several times, again and again.... In the United States, [and] also in Brazil, we have the situation that the people are beginning to fight against lockdowns and I understand why they are doing that,' he said. 'Instead of braking and accelerating, we needed a completely different concept.'"

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/09/health/local-lockdowns-leicester-melbourne-gutersloh-intl/index.html

Lockdowns enforced with brutality in Africa

COVID-19: Security forces in Africa brutalizing civilians under lockdown | Deutsche Welle:

April 20, 2020 - "Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, and Kenya are some of the countries that security agencies have used brutal means to keep people off the streets. The brutality contradicts some of the measures put in place that allow people to go out only for essential purposes, such as buying food and medication....

"According to Nigeria's Human Rights Commission, security operatives have killed at least eighteen civilians while trying to enforce the state-imposed lockdown to contain the spread of COVID-19. The rights group added that those killed by security forces so far outnumber patients who have died from the coronavirus in the country....

"Nigerian police denied any wrongdoing and directed all complaints to its communications department.... 'We ensure that the police we deploy adheres strictly to the police code of conduct and respect for the rights of Nigerian citizens,' Mohammed Adamu, Nigeria's Inspector General of Police (IGP), said....

"But Ryan Cummings, a security analyst at Signal Risk, a political and security risk management consultancy, disputes the IGP's defense line.... According to Cummings, the brutality of police and security forces against civilians in the northeast has also been documented by rights groups like Amnesty and Human Rights Watch. He says security forces often mistreat civilians with impunity under the pretext of fighting Boko Haram and authorities turn a blind eye....

"In South Africa, videos of police brutality against violators of the lockdown that was imposed on March 26 went viral on social media platforms. Several reports of torture and murder of citizens accused of breaching the lockdown regulations are now under investigation. Some of the videos show soldiers kicking people and forcing them to roll on the ground. Others were forced to frog-march until they reach their homes.

"But perhaps the death of Collins Koza, a resident of Alexandra Township, [most] angered many South Africans. DW correspondent in Johannesburg Thuso Khumalo reports that soldiers entered his house and beat him for drinking beer and having some bottles in his fridge.... [Koza] died three hours later after the beating.... In a separate incident, an entire family was assaulted for having a get-together outside their house.... So far, eight people have been killed as a result, and at least 200 cases of police brutality recorded....

"Cummings partly blames the police minister Bheki Cele's recent comments that urged his force to use highhandedness while enforcing the lockdown. 'Do not be nice to suspects' he urged on his men and women and gave the green light to destroy private property if they were selling alcohol, according to local reports.

"Cummings also believes that there's a deep mistrust between South Africans and the security organs that stems back in the apartheid era. 'There are indicators that the brutal enforcement might keep the people off the streets but further dent the relationship and social contract between the security organs and the people they are meant to serve.'"

Read more: https://www.dw.com/en/covid-19-security-forces-in-africa-brutalizing-civilians-under-lockdown/a-53192163

Cannabis prohibitions struck down in South Africa

Top South African court OKs private use of cannabis - CNN - Mitchell McCluskey & Bukola Adebayo:

September 19, 2018 = "South Africa's Constitutional Court approved the private use and cultivation of cannabis Tuesday....

"In a unanimous ruling hailed by activists campaigning for the legalization of marijuana, judges declared unconstitutional three sections of the Constitution that prohibited cannabis consumption, possession and cultivation. The ruling says Parliament should change the law within 24 months.

"Selling and smoking cannabis, popularly known as 'dagga' in South Africa, in public places remains illegal.

"South Africa joins a growing list of African countries embracing the legal use of marijuana. Last year, Lesotho became the first African country to offer legal licenses to grow it. In April, Zimbabwe's government legalized cultivation for medicinal and scientific purposes.

"Cannabis is the most widely used drug in the world, according to the UN's 2018 World Drug Report, which estimates that 3.9% of the global population between the ages of 15 and 64 used it at least once in 2016. The majority of the increases in recent years were in Africa and Asia.

"South Africa's Dagga Party won a court case last year permitting cannabis smoking in homes, paving the way for Tuesday's ruling. Jeremy Acton, the party's leader, said it will continue to lobby for legislation that includes the public use of cannabis. In his view, laws regulating marijuana use should not be stricter than those for tobacco and alcohol use."

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/19/health/south-africa-cannabis-private-use-intl/index.html
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Libertarian land reform in South Africa

Restoring Property Rights to Generational Apartheid Victims - Atlas Network:

"Maria Mothupi held the official deed to her land for the first time.... Until she was 99 years old, she had never experienced living in her own home or in a home legally owned by her family, because she was only two years old when the 1913 Land Act banned land ownership by black people in South Africa — a law that continues to have consequences today, despite its repeal more than two decades ago....

"This unlikely happy chapter toward the end of a hard life came about thanks to the Free Market Foundation (FMF) of South Africa’s Khaya Lam (My House) Land Reform project. FMF’s pilot project focused on the Ngwathe municipal area of the Free State province, where FMF Director Eustace Davie estimates that there are about 20,000 houses for which the ownership rights have not been documented and registered.

"The Khaya Lam project has already provided resources to carry out the conversion of some of these properties — out of an estimated 5 to 7 million that are eligible countrywide — to freehold title ownership.... Progress, however, has been slow.... Distrust, ambiguity, and prohibitive costs have all worked together to prevent a more rapid transfer of otherwise available titles. Through bulk processing and other cost reduction measures, FMF has reduced the cost from about $378 to $122 per title deed.

"The major purpose of the Ngwathe pilot project was to determine the most rapid and cost-efficient method of registering the rights of the homeowners and placing them in possession of title deeds that prove their rights and enable them to trade with their property legally, in any way they please.... More than 800 of the Ngwathe houses had either already been converted or were in the process of being converted by the end of October 2015, and by January 2016 FMF had 300 conversions sponsored in Cape Town and another 60 in the town of Grabouw.

"'Our task is to make everyone in the country aware of how the country will change for the better if we can extinguish the effects of one of the greatest crimes of apartheid: depriving black South Africans of property rights for 78 years,' Davie said. 'Calls for information are coming in from all over the country'....

"FMF is one of Atlas Network’s more-than-450 global partners working to restore and strengthen property rights.... Liberty Institute in New Delhi, India ... developed an innovative project that provides villagers with GPS devices and satellite mapping technology in order to prove their farming claims to the government and establish legal title to their own ancestral lands..... [I]in Honduras, where some believe uncertainty in property rights accounts for as much as 4 percent of their prohibitive loan interest rates, Atlas Network partner Fundación Eléutera has worked during the past year to help government leaders transform an ongoing and costly land titling digitalization effort by using blockchain technology....

"By protecting property rights, FMF through its Khaya Lam land titling project and these other projects by Atlas Network partners all strengthen individual liberty and prosperity."

Read more: https://www.atlasnetwork.org/poverty/stories/restoring-property-rights-to-generational-apartheid-victims
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Libertarian elected mayor of Johannesburg

Libertarian Herman Mashaba elected mayor of Johannesburg - Globe and Mail - Geoffrey York:

September 16, 2016 - "Herman Mashaba is a millionaire tycoon, an ideological libertarian and self-proclaimed 'capitalist crusader' who lectures his listeners about the evils of big government and minimum wage. He is also, shockingly, the newly elected mayor of South Africa’s biggest city....

"Less than a month after winning office as Johannesburg’s mayor, Mr. Mashaba is already energetically putting his free-market ideas into action. He is distributing thousands of title deeds to impoverished residents, trying to create a new class of landowners. He is plotting with private developers to turn the city into a vast construction site, and he is pledging to use small businesses to slash the unemployment rate....

"Mr. Mashaba is probably the only avowed libertarian to become mayor of a major African city. He’s even more of a free-market fundamentalist than his political party, the Democratic Alliance. The DA supports a minimum wage, for example, while Mr. Mashaba scathingly denounces it as 'an evil system to deprive poor uneducated people of the opportunity to advance.'

His highest value, he says, is 'individual freedom.' He rails against the 'culture of dependency' and excessive regulation in South Africa. 'I’m just asking the government to leave us alone,' he says.

"When a Globe and Mail interviewer suggests that he must be a lonely voice as the only libertarian mayor in the country, he laughs. 'I was born alone. My life is not shaped by other people.'

"The son of a domestic worker who was widowed when he was 2 years old, he grew up in poverty in a black township near Pretoria. In the apartheid era, when the white-minority regime made it difficult for blacks to enter business, Mr. Mashaba overcame the obstacles and made his fortune by creating a hair-products empire under the 'Black Like Me' brand name....

"Until two years ago, Mr. Mashaba had never joined a political party. He finally joined the DA in 2014, angered by the corruption scandals and race-baiting rhetoric of President Jacob Zuma. But if anyone had suggested he might end up as mayor of a city of five million people, he says, he would have asked them what they were smoking. Political pundits sneered at his weaknesses as a campaigner, predicting he would never become mayor.

"The ANC won 44 per cent of the Johannesburg vote last month, six percentage points more than the DA, but Mr. Mashaba became the 'accidental mayor' with the support of a third party, the Economic Freedom Fighters. The EFF, ironically, is even more left wing than the ruling party. Its leaders, portraying the DA as a white-dominated party, said Mr. Mashaba must be someone who hates his own skin colour. But the EFF is virulently opposed to the ANC and determined to unseat it anywhere, even at the cost of supporting a right-wing party. In the end, the ANC lost control of three of the country’s biggest cities."

Read more: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/libertarian-herman-mashaba-elected-mayor-of-johannesburg/article31942363/
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Libertarian Party of South Africa founded

The launch of SA's Libertarian Party: herding cats in time for 2014 | Daily Maverick - Ivo Vegter:

October 20, 2013 - "Those who believe in individual freedom on economic and social matters, also known as libertarians, are notoriously hard to organise. A new political party in South Africa aims to unite and focus the political opposition to authoritarianism and government waste, but the signs at its launch were not auspicious.

"On 20 October 2013, a sunny Sunday morning, a new political party was formed in the small Karoo town of Prince Albert. The Libertarian Party of South Africa (LiPSA) had, at its formation, a membership of 17 people....

"At the time of writing, the party had collected 150 out of 500 signatures required on its Deed of Foundation to form a party eligible to contest national elections, but the founders were not sure by what date the registration process had to be complete.

"LiPSA espouses the principles of individual freedom, as set against what its manifesto calls “the omnipotent state.... The party hopes to exploit the opportunity of a national election to focus the activities of various groupings that espouse principles of political and economic freedom, and views itself as a counterweight to what it considers the increasingly authoritarian and corrupt policies of the political establishment."

Read more: http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2013-10-20-the-launch-of-sas-libertarian-party-herding-cats-in-time-for-2014/#.UmWeuHCsiSo
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