Johannesburg - GOOD party leader Patricia de Lille is returning to Parliament along with her former DA chief whip in the City of Cape Town, Shaun August.
The four month-old GOOD party received over 70 000 votes in last week's general elections, securing two seats in the National Assembly and one in the Western Cape legislature.
De Lille will return to the National Assembly where she served for almost sixteen years between 1994 to 2010 for the Pan Africanist Congress and later her party, the Independent Democrats.
August is GOOD's national organiser. He stepped down from the DA council in support of De Lille last year.
The firebrand politician said her party's mandate is to fight for spatial justice, social, economic and environmental justice.
"We have also identified a set of priority goals, and agreed that party representatives will adopt a generally positive, gracious and constructive posture in parliament and the legislature. Priority goal number one is to address the fact that the face of poverty in South Africa is that of a woman of colour. This fact was underscored by the unemployment figures published this week by Statistics SA. We know that women bear the harshest burdens of food, water and tenure security, and that their children – especially girl children – will also find themselves trapped in the cycle of poverty unless there is drastic intervention. When we affirm the role of women in society we will break the cycle,'' De Lille said in a statement on Thursday.
Corruption should be crushed and guilty politicians jailed, she added.
"With regard to corruption, GOOD will use its mandate from voters to champion greasing the wheels of justice. We can’t just talk endlessly of good governance, as if the promise of it will feed the hungry and shelter the homeless. The ruling party’s internal difficulties to assemble a clean team cannot be allowed to derail the country. My advice to the governing party is simple, really: corrupt politicians must be investigated, tried and sent to prison – not endlessly accused and sent to parliament.
"We will use the 6th Parliament to hold the executive to account for a growing economy that creates jobs and reduces inequality, for a spatially integrated South Africa, for a GOOD country of increasing equity where women and young people are not left behind, and for a country that honours our international climate change commitments."
GOOD secretary, Brett Herron, will take up a seat in the Western Cape legislature.