Cape Town - When the EFF takes over the running of the Western Cape government it will be a drug free province, Economic Freedom Fighter leader Julius Malema said on Saturday.
Addressing hundreds of supporters at an election rally in Mitchells Plain, Malema blamed the increase in drug abuse in the province on capitalists.
“When you are buying drugs, you are actually enriching those people who want to make more money at the expense of the lives of the black majority,” Malema said.
“Gangsterism does not have a home in our country. The people must reclaim the streets.”
During his address, Malema took a swipe at Gayton McKenzie - the Patriotic Alliance leader who wrote a scathing open letter to the EFF leader earlier in the week.
McKenzie, a convicted bank robber and self confessed former gangster, described Malema as the “biggest thief” he had ever met.
“You get two kinds of politicians in this country - the ones who come from prison and those who must still go to prison. You belong to the latter,” McKenzie wrote.
Malema responded in kind.
“We cannot have communities led by gangsters. Gangsters, if they want to be leaders, they must contest elections like their friends who have formed a party,” Malema told supporters.
“We will never be led by an ex-con. We will never be led by an ex gangster...”
The African National Congress and the Democratic Alliance were not spared during Malema's attacks on his political rivals.
“The coloured people and the Africans must stand together because all of you are marginalised by the apartheid DA government in the western Cape,” Malema said.
The feisty leader said the DA protected the interests of white monopoly in the country.
“We don't want greedy white people. We don't want greedy black people and that's why we are not friends with Cyril Ramaphosa,” he said, referring to the ANC deputy president.
Malema also called on his supporters to stage a stay away from 20 years of democracy celebrations.
“You don't have freedom people of the Western Cape, therefore you have nothing to celebrate,” Malema said.
“For as long as you don't have your dignity back, you have nothing to celebrate.”
The former ANC Youth League leader made reference to the fact that many people in the province still had no access to flushing toilets.
The banning of an EFF election advertisement from the SABC was cited as another example of how South Africans were not free to express themselves.
The advert, which asks people to destroy e-tolls physically, was banned by the public broadcaster because it incited people to commit a criminal offence.
“This freedom is not free, therefore... don't go to a Freedom Day rally. Just go door-to-door,” he told supporters who were bussed in from across the Western Cape.
Sapa