Johannesburg - The battle for the control of Gauteng kicked off in earnest this week, with DA leader Helen Zille vowing the party could, would and must win the province next year.
“Everyone here today knows that something profound is taking place in Gauteng. Suddenly, everyone is talking about change. And they believe in it,” she told a packed Mary Fitzgerald Square in Newtown, Joburg.
“Let there be no doubt: South Africans are witnessing a once-in-a-generation change in direction. But this change has been a long time in the making. The DA in 2013 is now viewed by everyone – our supporters and opponents alike – as the ANC’s only competitor in Gauteng.”
She said the party will continue its fight against e-tolls and introduce a version of the youth wage subsidy should it be voted into power in Gauteng in next year’s national and provincial elections.
“From e-tolls to an increase in unemployment of over 400 000 people since 2009, to the failure to implement a youth wage subsidy, the residents of Gauteng have been let down,” she said.
“The provincial government has failed to turn South Africa’s richest province into jobs and a better life for the majority of its residents.”
She said the province was caught up in an “electric, exhilarating… blue buzz” because there was a “real sense that change is coming”.
“It is something that no one thought was possible. Can you already smell the victory? Because we want to taste the sweet smell of victory. And we also know how hard we’ll have to work to achieve it,” she said.
“Where we govern, we will fight e-tolls like we have done in the Western Cape, like we’ve done in Parliament, and like we are doing in Gauteng.”
She demanded to know where the youth wage subsidy, announced by President Jacob Zuma during his State of the Nation address in 2010, was, adding that 400 000 more people were unemployed in Gauteng.
“People have become poorer because of a corrupt government,” Zille said.
She said Gauteng Premier Nomvula Mokonyane had revealed in the previous year that R6.6 billion was “misspent on unauthorised, irregular and wasteful expenditure”.
“That is much more than what was spent on the president’s private residence in Nkandla. For all these reasons, people are angry. In a democracy you fight for your freedom, and that party is the DA,” she said.
“Can you imagine what could and should have been done with that money?
“New schools, better public transport, new hospitals, a better life for all.”
Earlier, DA youth leader Mbali Ntuli called on supporters to “show the county that when young people want change they can make it happen”.
“We want jobs,” she said, adding that the Western Cape, where the DA governed, had the country’s best matric pass rate, “no corruption” and the “most jobs”.
“We have the youth wage subsidy in the Western Cape and young people are working, and we will bring the youth wage subsidy to Gauteng… And we must let everyone know that if they want a better future they must vote DA.”
DA Gauteng leader John Moodey, said the rally aimed to “demonstrate to the people of Gauteng and the people of South Africa” it had the “will, the conviction and the blue machinery” to win the province.
He said ANC stood for “another national crisis” and that if it continued to govern the province it would lead to a “failed state, another failed Zimbabwe”.
He vowed there would not be a single house in the province which would not have been visited by the DA during its election campaign.
Sunday Independent