The country’s third-biggest political party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), will be launching what it calls a people-centred manifesto on Sunday at Gandhi Square in the Johannesburg CBD.
2021 is the second time the party, established in 2013, contests the Local Government Elections and this time, they say they are in it to win as they will be contesting elections in all the wards.
EFF Chairperson Veronica Mente says the manifesto is centred around the party’s founding seven pillars as well as consultations with communities.
“As much as we know what we stand for we also believe that going to our people and getting to understand the depth of their problems currently because 2016 was another era. That was five years ago, there were issues existing issues, however, we want to understand the depth of those problems right now. How deep they are? What other issues have been adding on over the years and what they want from a government to service them? And therefore our manifesto was then drafted and crafted on what our people are telling us and what we know.”
EFF says that it will not be dictated to by government on how to conduct its election programme, despite the national disaster regulations which currently place the country on Alert Level 2.
COVID-19 has killed over 87 000 people in South Africa.
Mente says, “We can’t win Johannesburg by speaking to 500 people, it is not possible and I do not understand the science of applying 500 when on voting day thousands and thousands will be queuing at voting districts. Those people, they are not going to have crowd control and they will be going into small voting stations so how do you then on that day say there is no science. So the moment you say it’s election your science is stepping aside. We are talking to the people now and we are working and there is no way that we can control the crowds as people want to listen to the EFF.”
I The video below, the EFF says its manifesto is people-centred:
