President Jacob Zuma and DA leader Helen Zille have made their final appeals to voters before Wednesday’s local government elections.
Zuma, speaking at the FNB Stadium in Soweto on Sunday, called on South Africans to vote ANC “in every town, village, township and suburb”, while Zille said the public could choose five more years of poor service delivery and toyi-toying, or they could choose five years of steadily increasing access to housing and basic services by choosing the DA.
ANC Youth League president Julius Malema once again attacked the DA and Zille. “The DA is for the whites and it is not for you. You must never claim to belong to the DA,” he told the 90 000-strong crowd in Soweto for the ANC’s final Siyanqoba (“we will win”) rally.
Electioneering officially closed at 7am on Monday.
“The DA belongs to a minority, the ANC belongs to us, black and white,” Malema said, adding the ANC would take back Cape Town and Midvaal.
“The madam is now running the show alone,” he said.
Malema said people should not betray freedom fighters like Chris Hani and Solomon Mahlangu. “You must never forget where you come from.”
Addressing the community of Lebogang township in Govan Mbeki municipality, Mpumalanga, Zille said: “I thought that things might have improved here by now. I thought that President Zuma might have done something after I delivered your memorandum to him.
“But, if anything, things are getting worse. You have no basic services because the people in power have stopped caring about you. They care more about themselves than those they are supposed to serve. It is the same all over South Africa,” she said.
She reminded the community that it had asked her to “please fix things” during her previous visit.
“I explained that the DA will do its best to help, but there is a limit to what we can do in opposition.
“To really make a difference, we need to be in government,” she said.
“It is no good voting ANC on Wednesday and toyi-toying on Thursday. If you vote for the wrong party, you only have yourself to blame.”
Malema received the loudest cheers, second only to artists including Zola 7, and soapie actors who came to endorse the ANC.
He set the scene for Zuma, who in his speech harked back to the atrocities committed under apartheid.
In a scripted and somewhat dull speech, Zuma, dressed in an ANC leather jacket despite the sunny weather, said: “Each vote that we cast for the ANC in each election is a declaration that we do not want to go back to the era of racism, divisions, inequalities and the promotion of privileges of one racial group over others.”
He outlined the ANC’s achievements since it came to power in 1994, but acknowledged more needed to be done.
Zuma said: “We also acknowledge the call of our people for some of our police officials to exercise restraint, especially with regards to peaceful community protests and activities taking place within the confines of the constitution.”
Zuma promised better monitoring and evaluation systems in municipalities, and said the government’s overhaul of local government was in progress.
In KwaZulu-Natal, ANC provincial chairman Zweli Mkhize appealed for reconciliation within the party following infighting during the nomination process for the local government election and requested that problems be resolved internally.
Speaking at the ANC’s last election rally in KwaZulu-Natal, at the Harry Gwala Stadium in Pietermaritzburg, Mkhize said those aggrieved should address the matter at the “correct forum” and that disagreements should be put aside.
Earlier this month, three people were attacked while campaigning for the local government elections in Pietermaritzburg.
Independent candidate Vincent Myeni, a former ANC member, alleged that he and his supporters were refused entry to a hall he had hired for a meeting in Willowfountain by people wearing ANC shirts.
They then decided to meet in the hall grounds, but people in ANC sweaters had stormed his supporters, stabbing three of them.
Two were admitted to hospital, while the third was treated and discharged. - The Mercury