OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Sunday
FORMER South African president Nelson Mandela has told a trade union rally that no white party can run South Africa, attacking the opposition Democratic Alliance in a bid to win votes for the ANC in Tuesday’s municipal elections.
“You must not be misled by a party that only cares for blacks on the eve of the elections,” he told a rally to commemorate the 15th anniversary of COSATU, the country’s biggest, ANC-affiliated union federation.
“No white party can run this country … no matter how they cover up by getting a few black stooges, they (the whites) remain the bosses… they remain a white party.”
In Cape Town, President Thabo Mbeki also played the race card against the DA at a rally in the dirt-poor township of Khayelitsha.
“They say they love you and you must vote for them, but where were they when Nelson Mandela was in jail for 27 years?” he asked a 5000-strong crowd.
An opinion poll released this week has shown that in some cities the African National Congress faces a tough challenge from the DA – a merger between the New National Party, which ruled under apartheid, and the Democratic Party, which is mostly supported by wealthy whites.
The DA shot back that the ANC “are not interested in blacks at any time during or outside of elections. They are only interested in votes for themselves and jobs for cronies.”
“To suggest that we are only interested in blacks during election time is a lie. More than half our candidates are black,” the party’s chief whip Douglas Gibson said.
The DA holds power in most of Cape Town’s municipal structures, something Mbeki’s ANC is trying hard to change in Tuesday’s vote.
Mbeki told the rally the DA, which has 25 white ward candidates and only five non-whites, would only look after its own whereas a vote for the ANC “meant a vote for a continued struggle against the legacy of apartheid”.
If the ANC won, Mbeki said, everybody will get a set amount of water and electricity for free.
The party will also see to it that they get proper housing, he told the Khayelithsa residents, most of whom live in tiny shacks.
Whites, who will suddenly share a single city council with the townships after Tuesday when all of Cape Town’s municipal structures are merged into a massive “unicity” with 2.4 million people, fear higher rates and water restrictions if the ANC wins. The coloured majority are fickle voters who have yet to come out in full support of the ruling party. – AFP