Durban - A week after ANC deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa caused a stir over his “boer” warning to voters, another senior ANC leader has waded into the fray – with some opposition parties on Sunday saying the “scare tactics” and “rhetoric garbage” were signs of a party in panic mode.
Speaking during a door-to-door election campaign in Limpopo at the weekend, Public Enterprises Minister Malusi Gigaba warned that the “oppressors” would take over the government if people did not vote in large numbers during next year’s general elections.
He said opposition parties would gang up against the ANC, slam the brakes on its economic transformation agenda and reduce black people to being the “proletariat of white capital”.
The ANC national executive committee member said those oppressors did not want meaningful economic change, black economic empowerment, affirmative action and youth development.
Gigaba was addressing residents of Ga-Mokgoba, near Tzaneen in Limpopo, during a door-to-door campaign on Saturday.
“Now it is time for the people to make their choices. But they must register in their numbers. If they do not register to vote, those who have oppressed us before and now claim that they love us will come back to rule this country,” Gigaba said.
He later repeated his statement while addressing an ANC Youth League 69th anniversary lecture at Kgapane Township in Modjadjiskloof.
“Our opponents have made it very clear that the economic transformation they seek is the one that will keep black people as proletariat of white capital. If the support for the ANC drops, the opposition in this country will club together to slow down transformation. It will take us decades to recover and restore transformation,” Gigaba added.
He warned that next year’s elections would not be easy for the ANC.
Gigaba urged party volunteers to work tirelessly to make people realise the importance of voting for the ANC so it could win with an overwhelming majority and rule without hindrance.
He repeated that ANC members should not assume that their party had a divine right to rule.
“Let us not think that the leadership of the ANC of our society was pre-ordained in heaven. The ANC is not an organisation of saints and angels. We are an organisation of ordinary human beings who make mistakes,” he said.
A local resident, Thomas Chabalala, 35, told Gigaba that ANC leaders had a tendency of abandoning voters after elections.
“After elections you forget us and you go to Parliament. Please don’t forget us,” said Chabalala.
Gigaba’s statement came a week after Ramaphosa caused a stir when he warned of a “boer” takeover and the return of apartheid if South Africans did not vote for the ruling party.
After Freedom Front Plus leader Pieter Mulder accused him of being a racist who resorted to “primitive scare tactics” to win votes, Ramaphosa said it was “unfortunate” that his use of the term ‘the boers’ during a campaign in Limpopo had offended some people.
He said it was “never intended to be derogatory”, because he had merely used a term that had “commonly been used by black South Africans to refer to the erstwhile apartheid regime” while warning of the danger of the country backsliding.
On Sunday, opposition parties said Gigaba’s “scare tactics” and “rhetoric garbage” were signs of a party in a panic mode.
UDM leader Bantu Holomisa said the minister’s utterances were an indication of panic and an admission that the “honeymoon is over” (for the ANC) and the palace was “imploding”.
“That is rhetoric garbage which you can dismiss by asking one question: Does he expect people to continue voting for this corrupt government? They are clutching at straws,” Holomisa said.
“Gigaba must look inside (the ANC). He must forget about the opposition.”
Mulder said Gigaba’s statement was part of the “white danger” used by the ANC to hide its poor service record.
“And who is the oppressor? The fact that there are no jobs after 20 years (of democracy) shows the ANC might be the new oppressor, or maybe the new elite,” he said.
DA spokesman Mmusi Maimane said Gigaba was just trying to instil fear among voters.
“He must campaign and prove what the ANC has done, not what the opposition could do. What he is saying is that the advancement of black South Africans is not for any party except the ANC, which is not true.”
The Mercury