EFF leader Julius Malema has urged Eastern Cape voters to punish the ANC at the polls over failing services, poverty and hunger, declaring: “We are led by fools.”
Addressing supporters at the EFF’s provincial manifesto launch at Rotary Stadium in Ngangelizwe, Mthatha, on Saturday, Malema took aim at the ANC’s record in the province as parties intensify campaigning ahead of the November 4 local government elections.
He appealed particularly to elderly voters not to continue supporting the ANC because of their loyalty to late former president Nelson Mandela.
“We don’t belong to the past. We belong to the destination that we are going to design for ourselves. We love Nelson Mandela. Allow Mandela to rest in peace. Mandela is not Ramaphosa. There is no Mandela today.
“There is still Ramaphosa. And we are outvoting a rotten ANC of Cyril Ramaphosa. And in doing that, we’ll be respecting Nelson Mandela.
“Mandela said, if the ANC do to you what apartheid did to you, you must do to the ANC what you did to apartheid. And that’s what we are going to do on the 4th of November. Let’s make Madiba proud,” Malema said.
He accused the ANC government of destroying Mandela’s legacy and said political freedom had not been followed by economic freedom.
“Madiba is not proud that they are destroying his legacy. They are destroying what he went to prison for. When he said aluta continua, Mandela never said the struggle is over. Mandela said the struggle continues.
“He meant that he gave us political freedom but we still need economic freedom. He handed over the baton to us and said continue with the struggle for economic freedom in our lifetime.”
Malema focused much of his speech on service delivery, including healthcare, education, roads and bridges, hunger and access to higher education.
He said clinics should operate around the clock and argued that poor people bore the brunt of shortcomings in the public healthcare system.
“When we say a clinic must open 24 hours, it’s not because we are populist. It’s because we want to save lives. We want our children to be born in proper, well-equipped clinics.
“No white person has ever given birth on the floor. No white child was ever put in a cardboard box [instead of a bed in a healthcare facility]. No white child has ever been born at the back of a bakkie [on the way to a public health facility].
“Why should our children be born in environments that are not conducive? That is going to stop in the Eastern Cape.”
Malema invoked the province’s history as the birthplace of anti-apartheid leaders including Mandela, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu, Steve Biko, Govan Mbeki and Thabo Mbeki, saying its present conditions did not reflect that legacy.
“But when you look at it, it doesn’t look like a province that produces heroes.
“If you undermine us [people], at least respect Nelson Mandela.”
He also attacked the state of infrastructure in rural communities.
“Only in Eastern Cape do people on Saturdays cross rivers carrying coffins because there’s no bridge. Now, we [EFF] want a province where even people who are dead, they are given respect.
“It’s high time the people of Eastern Cape start respecting themselves.”
Malema said an EFF government would push for free higher education and improvements to schools and sanitation.
“Fighters, all of us must go to university and Tvet College free of charge. No one must pay for higher education. We are led by fools.
“Only in Eastern Cape do children die, not in theory, die practically of poverty, of hunger. We are burying children here in the Eastern Cape because of hunger. Let the 4th of November stop hunger.
“Let the 4th of November stop the dying of our children in the Eastern Cape. The mud schools are found in the Eastern Cape. The pit toilets are found in the Eastern Cape, and there are not so many.
“The EFF can finish those schools within a year and restore the dignity of our children and give them a flushing toilet,” Malema said.
He said an EFF government would ensure the Eastern Cape received recognition befitting the province’s contribution to South Africa’s liberation struggle.