Cape Town - Nine months ago the Economic Freedom Fighters barely had any support in the Western Cape, but in two weeks’ time the party’s provincial leader could be in the legislature, giving the government “sleepless nights” after receiving almost 40 000 votes.
The EFF was formed nationally in May last year but its Western Cape structures were not established until October.
By Thursday night, the EFF had 39 695 votes in the Western Cape, just over 2 percent of the vote cast in the province. This gave the party at least one seat.
At deadline, capturing of vote counts was not yet complete.
The party’s premier candidate, Nazier Paulsen, was coy about who the party would send to the legislature.
He was at the top of the organisation’s provincial candidate list.
“We will be giving them sleepless nights (at the legislature),” Paulsen said on Thursday.
“I’d feel a lot better if we had more votes. I’m happy that we have laid a foundation. We have to be realistic. We are a new party without funding. All our activities were funded by our members.
“We’ve had nine months to establish the organisation in the province.
“We have two years to continue to build (for the municipal elections in 2016).”
He felt the party did well in the little time it had to prepare for the elections, but said it would have done a lot better with more time to mobilise.
He was “disappointed” that it received only 2 percent of the vote as it meant “talented” candidates would not have the opportunity to contribute to the running of the province.
But it was not all disappointment - the EFF had gained ground in the national ballot.
At 6pm it had 641 546 of the national vote. Paulsen said: “That is close to 20 seats.”
Cape Times