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DA urges South Africans to vote smart

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The Democratic Alliance (DA) has urged South Africans to vote smart and vote with their heads. Party leader John Steenhuisen has requested citizens to give the DA an outright mandate for the next five years to bring the party’s vision and brand of clean governance to their towns and cities.

He has blamed the African National Congress (ANC) and its policies for the decay in municipalities across the country, saying the DA has a proven record of service delivery in the places it runs.

Steenhuisen called on people to vote for those who they believe will ensure service delivery in their municipalities.

“This is a local government election. It means that you are voting for a government that is going to be tasked with the day-to-day running of your town or city. This is about service delivery. It is about infrastructure maintenance. It is about looking after every cent of your money and making sure it is spent well and on the people and not stolen or spent on politicians. If you can do these things well, your municipality has every chance to succeed, but if you fail to do the basics, your municipality will fail and that is guaranteed.”

Steenhuisen told thousands of supporters at the party’s closing rally that the ANC is the cause of failed service delivery in many municipalities in the country. He says the ANC’s fatal flaw is that it puts the interests of the party before those of the people.

“It places its own people in crucial government positions regardless of whether they can do the required job. All that matters is that those people in the inner circle are rewarded with jobs and access to contracts. They call this cadre deployment and they are not ashamed of it. It’s not a secret they try to hide, they are proud of it, what an absolute disgrace but what this cadre deployment does is that it hollows out government and particularly local government to the point that it becomes just an empty shell of cadres drawing salaries and adding nothing.”

The DA leader says that his party understands what it is to run an efficient municipality and the positive effect this can have on people’s lives.

“Objectively you are more likely to have access to water, electricity, and regularly refuse removal if you live in a DA municipality. Objectively, you are more likely to receive services for free if you are poor and live in a DA-run municipality. Objectively, you have a better chance of finding work if you live in a DA-run municipality, objectively less public money will be wasted, stolen, or misreported in a DA-run municipality. And, because all these things are true, DA municipalities operate in a sustainable cycle.”

He has urged South Africans to vote smart and vote with their heads and avoid being duped into voting for smaller parties.

“The best outcome for the ANC is a fragmented opposition vote. Don’t be fooled into thinking that any vote is good as long as it’s not for the ANC. But they’re not the only party hoping that you split the vote amongst smaller parties. In many municipalities, the EFF is waiting for precisely this to happen. Such a split will not eat into their own vote and there is a real possibility that they could end up being the official opposition in these municipalities. If this were to happen it will be catastrophic for these towns and cities as the ANC and EFF will be left fighting to be more radical and more populist than each other which will certainly leave poor people in these towns far poorer.”

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