Johannesburg - There seems to be no end in sight to the ugly spats between South Africa’s biggest political parties as they ratchet up support ahead of the hotly contested municipal elections next week.
In the latest incident, the DA has found itself on the receiving end of the ANC’s wrath after it unveiled election posters in the Tshwane metro on Tuesday, calling on people to honour Nelson Mandela’s dream by voting DA on August 3.
ANC national spokesman Zizi Kodwa said on Tuesday the continued attempts by the official opposition party to “appropriate” Mandela’s persona bordered on cheap politicking and desperation.
“It is a glaring sign that the DA’s attempts to woo the black electorate are floundering and they will stop at nothing to ‘blackwash’ their chequered history as a whites-only party by thrusting a few token blacks into positions of leadership and appropriating even symbols that have always shunned them,” he said.
Throughout its election campaign, the DA had offended Mandela’s memory and integrity, “using him and his legacy callously for their narrow political gains”, said Kodwa.
He characterised the DA as a “haven for racists” and a “reconstitution of the National Party, which found refuge in the DA to carry forward the baton of racist oppression under a new guise”.
“If the DA were committed to the realisation to Madiba’s vision, Cape Town, where they govern, would not be a tale of two cities, one rich and white, and another poor and black. It would not be the only city in which the number of informal settlements has increased in the last five years. White representation at senior management level of the City, would not be sitting at 70%, compared to a white population of just over 15% in the province,” he said.
He dismissed the DA, which poses a threat to the ANC in the Joburg, Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay metros as a Trojan horse of apartheid, “draped in the deceptive colours of non-racism”.
The ANC Youth League in Gauteng also weighed in on the DA’s latest election posters, saying the party was “stealing” Mandela’s legacy.
“The opportunism and moral bankruptcy of the DA knows no bounds, they evidently waited for Tata to pass so they could steal his legacy, knowing he can't rebuke from the grave,” it said on Tuesday.
It added that if the official opposition could subject the country to apartheid, “they can surely, without shame, subject us to far worse”.
Addressing the ANC's provincial Siyanqoba rally in Port Elizabeth on Saturday, President Jacob Zuma referred to DA members as snakes and that the ANC ancestors would turn in their graves in the metro fell under the DA after the elections.
ANC support has been declining in the Eastern Cape’s biggest metro, retaining control by 51.9 percent of the total vote during the municipal elections in 2011. The number went below 50 percent during the 2014 national election.
@luyolomkentane
Elections Bureau