Image credits: Delwyn Verasamy
Democratic Alliance (DA) leader John Steenhuisen has closed the party’s 2024 election campaign with a call to voters to strip the ANC of its outright majority that was used to “subject South Africans to unemployment, corruption, and misrule over the past three decades”, he said.
Steenhuisen asked supporters and the voting public to make the 29 May elections deliver a decisive win for the party, speaking at the party’s last rally ahead of the general elections on Wednesday.
Thousands of supporters attended the rally, held in the packed Willowmore Stadium in Benoni, Ekurhuleni. Steenhuisen promised that the DA would close the ANC’s chapter in South Africa’s history.
Steenhuisen was supported by DA top leadership including Gauteng Premier candidate Solly Msimanga
“A new chapter will begin. This new chapter will be written by the people of South Africa. Use that pen to vote for a serious party, with a proven track record, that will work for you and with you, to turn South Africa’s next chapter into the best one yet.
“That party is the Democratic Alliance. You see, unlike all other parties in this election, the DA doesn’t make promises about what we will do one day. We show you the evidence of what we are already doing – today”, Steenhuisen said.
He said the DA did not appear out of nowhere to promise voters the sun, the moon and the sky. He was referring to the National Health Insurance (NHI) bill signed recently by President Cyril Ramaphosa. “We don’t wait for elections to try and manipulate you with desperate stunts like the NHI.
“This scheme will not solve the ANC corruption and mismanagement that has destroyed public healthcare. Instead, it will expropriate medical aid from the millions of South Africans who – despite the misrule of the ANC – have worked hard to make it into the middle class since 1994”, Steenhuisen said.
He added that the ANC was using the NHI as a political ploy to gain votes while playing games with the health of citizens.
Image credits: Delwyn Verasamy
Steenhuisen said that unlike the ANC, the DA did not play political gimmicks with people’s lives. He called on voters to abandon any emotional attachment they might have for the ANC due to its history and judge it on its failure to deliver and its high levels of corruption.
“Instead of expropriating medical aid funds, we have a rational and sustainable plan to achieve universal access to quality healthcare by making private medical aid affordable for more people, while rooting out corruption and mismanagement from public hospitals and clinics, just like we have already done in the Western Cape. The DA doesn’t need populist stunts because we do the hard work”, he added.
The DA leader promised to fix public schools to ensure that South African children have a better future.
“We already run the best municipalities and provincial governments in South Africa today. That is why only the DA can make tomorrow a better country because we believe South Africa can be a better country,” he said.
“Today, our country suffers. Our people are suffering an unbearable burden of poverty, unemployment, crime and hunger. These disasters are not inevitable. These disasters were created by the ANC people, by corrupt and selfish people who betray our country.”