Johannesburg - Kliptown township in Soweto is the symbolic definition of what poverty looks like, EFF leader Julius Malema said on Sunday.
“When we look around here we see poverty. If people did not know the definition of poverty, Kliptown is proof that there is no good news to tell 20 years after our democracy,” he told a crowd gathered at an open field in the township.
Malema was introducing advocate Dali Mpofu as the Economic Freedom Fighters' Gauteng premier candidate.
“People of Kliptown don't know what freedom and democracy is. Freedom is a house, how do you have freedom if you share a room with your kids? When you go to bed hungry? When you don't have a local clinic in an area where the Freedom Charter was adopted?”
He said the ruling party should be ashamed.
He told residents and EFF supporters present that they should ask the African National Congress where they had worked hard.
“This is where it should have started. In 1994 we said 'a better life for all' not a better life for the few. If there are roads in Orlando and not in Kliptown, then there is no good story to tell,” Malema said.
He urged the crowd to have faith in the EFF and to vote for them in the upcoming May 7 general elections.
“We as the EFF are saying 'Vote for us for five years, if we don't deliver then kick us out. Don't wait 20 years.”
He said Mpofu was a humble man who grew up in politics, who lived with ordinary people but was still able to speak English and serve the people.
Sapa