Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon spelled out on Tuesday the goals of his party’s ”Coalition for Change” with the Inkatha Freedom Party, and predicted the two parties would win up to 30% of the national vote on Election Day.
In a speech prepared for delivery at the University of Stellenbosch, where he shared a platform with IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi, he said the coalition’s goals were ”simple and direct”.
”We want to co-govern at the provincial level in KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape; we want to roll back the power of the ANC at the national level; and we want to push for radical policy changes on the issues that matter most to ordinary South Africans: jobs, poverty, crime, and HIV/Aids.”
He said the DA and IFP were not just providing more opposition. ”We are providing the core of an alternative government,” Leon said.
He said the two parties had already governed well together in KwaZulu-Natal.
”The DA-controlled housing department in KZN provided more than 21 000 housing subsidies last year — more than the ANC had provided in the previous two years.
”We also worked with the IFP to start delivering houses on rural traditional lands. And it is no accident that the two provinces that were the first to provide antiretroviral drugs — the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal — are the two where the DA and the IFP have governed.”
Leon predicted the coalition would win between 25% and 30% of the national vote on April 14.
”And we will build on that foundation to form a new majority that will one day win power from the ANC,” he said.
Meanwhile, DA campaign spokesperson Douglas Gibson says he likes Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille, but would not waste a vote on her party.
In a statement on Tuesday, Gibson said the ID was a ”one-woman show”. ”Voters have never heard of anyone other than Patricia de Lille,” he said.
The ID had no properly researched, comprehensive or coherent policy platform to offer, and no significant structures or leadership across South Africa.
”The ID refuses to say whether it would keep the ANC out of power in the Western Cape, or whether it would help the ANC form a government in the event that no party there gets 50% of the vote.
”I like Patricia de Lille, but I wouldn’t waste my vote on her party,” he said. – Sapa