The greatest challenge the city of Cape Town still faced was poverty, Democratic Alliance (DA) mayoral candidate Patricia de Lille said on Saturday during an election campaign launch in Belhar.
“Poverty alleviation must come in the form of making sure that everyone who needs help gets it,” she said.
“The DA could never defeat poverty completely in five years. Our history of inequality and oppression will take a long time to fix,” she said in a statement.
However, De Lille said, she could confirm that their approach was working.
“Poverty knows no political affiliation. When you are poor you are poor. We need to take the politics out of poverty. We need to always deliver to poor people no matter who they voted for,” she said.
“In this election year and all years, we want to serve you. We do not take your vote for granted.
“If you lend us your vote, we will continue to serve you each and every day, De Lille said.
Reports of interference
Meanwhile, in Mpumalanga’s Mataffin, another DA rally was allegedly disrupted by African National Congress (ANC) members who blockaded the road on which the campaigning was taking place, party spokesperson Anthony Benadie said.
“We are disgusted at the ANC’s intolerance of other political parties’ right to campaign, rightfully they are very scared,” Benadie said in a statement.
He said the ANC did not care for the people of Mataffin, “who despite living on the doorstep of the multimillion-rand 2010 soccer stadium do not have access to clean water, sewage services, housing or electricity”.
The DA would never be intimidated by ANC ranting, he said.
“If they want to be deserving of the peoples’ vote, they must deliver water, electricity and decent housing.”
Benadie said the DA would continue to take over ANC strongholds where they have failed to deliver to the people.
Despite the disruption, the DA reported that the people of Mataffin welcomed party candidate Hitler Mashile as a “sign of recognition that the DA [was] sensitive to the issues of communities and [was] serious on delivering services”. – Sapa