Vote ANC to solve problems, says Zuma

2011-04-30 22:47

Cape Town - The only way to solve the problems of housing and poverty in Cape Town is to vote for the ANC, party president Jacob Zuma told the people of Gugulethu on Saturday.

This was the central message at each of the stops he made in Gugulethu during his campaign ahead of the May 18 local government election.

Addressing hundreds of people who had gathered to see him, Zuma said the Democratic Alliance (DA) was not doing a good job in the city or in the Western Cape.

"There is a myth that the municipalities of the Western Cape are the most excellent... that its performing... in fact its the worst run municipality.

"The DA is only looking after the rich people. There are lots of problems, but we can't solve them because you are under the wrong municipality. We can sort out the problems only if you vote for the ANC. Lets vote and after that sort out all the problems."

Zuma said that he had been around Cape Town and was very disappointed at what he saw.

He described the situation as "very bad".

He said the only way people living in Gugulethu, Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain could live better lives was if they voted for the ANC.

One little girl at the Kick Hostel Zuma visited on Saturday morning carried a poster saying "we want solutions, no more explanations".

Wrong leadership

But Zuma told the crowd gathered in the narrow, muddy street in front of a row of shacks, that while he was aware of their problems, the ANC could not do anything because the city was under the wrong leadership.

"The challenge in the Western Cape is that the Western Cape is not in our [ANC] hands. All other metros know very well they will win, but in the Western Cape its a challenge... so we must vote for the ANC."

He said while the policy of the ANC was to change the lives of the people, it could not be done in Cape Town unless the ANC was in power.

He called for the libertaion of the Western Cape describing it as an "extremely apartheid system" that encouraged "separate development".

He encouraged people to become volunteers and to spread the word for everyone to vote for the ANC in order to liberate the metro.

To loud cheers and applause from a hall at the Zolani centre packed with people wearing white "Vote ANC" t-shirts he said: "Its [the ANC] not like every other political party. We were formed by the nation for the nation, to liberate people, to change their lives... On the 18th of May, vote for the ANC."

He described the the election as "do or die" for the party in the Western Cape.

The media

Zuma also criticised the media, etv in particular, for campaigning against the party.

The hall erupted in applause when he said that opposition parties were supported by large in the media.

The party's mayoral candidate for Cape Town, Tony Ehrenreich, as well as its provincial chairperson, Marius Fransman, accompanied Zuma. There was also a strong police presence with caspers and police vans circling the streets and closing off roads around Gugulethu.

Fransman and Ehrenreich encouraged people to vote the ANC back into power.

"We [ANC] are coming back and taking Cape Town back to the ANC. We know what our forefathers had promised our people," said Ehrenreich.

Fransman said the ANC in the Western Cape had a plan and had given notice to the DA.

"We appeal to you, we are asking you to go and vote... We must get the maximum number of voters out to vote... We are asking you to make sure we reclaim on the 18th of May the City of Cape Town."

Zuma was expected to address the Congress of South African Trade Unions May Day rally in Athlone on Sunday.

- SAPA