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Kasrils is misleading voters: ANCYL

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Former Intelligence minister and ANC stalwart, Ronnie Kasrils, is misleading voters by calling on them to spoil their votes, says the African National Congress Youth League’s (ANCYL) chairperson at Wits Mcebo Zwelakhe Sisulu.

Sisulu was addressing ANCYL supporters and students outside the launch of Sidikiwe Vukani! Vote Campaign at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, on Tuesday.

Sisulu says: “We are here to voice our concerns. Kasrils is saying we should not vote, we should spoil our votes. I don’t agree with him. It can’t happen in the democratic country.”

He says South Africa is a democratic country, and the rights to vote were fought for. “In short he [Kasrils] is saying I fought for your right to vote; now I am going to tell you when to vote and who you should vote for.”

Lead by African National Congress stalwarts such as former deputy health minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge and Kasrils, the group says it is not a “no vote” campaign — they were merely calling on people to go to the polls on May 7, but vote for minority parties or spoil the ballot.

Kasrils says nothing will stop them from discouraging South Africans from voting for the ANC. He says this group is ready to confront critics with debates. “We feel that in putting our heads above the barricades, there will be the slings and the arrows, the stones… but it’s the least we can do. (…) We want to shake them up,” says Kasrils.

Madlala-Routledge says there are a growing number of disgruntled South Africans “We are doing this out of love for our country. There is a lot going wrong in our country and you can see a lot is going wrong.”

Madlala-Routledge referred to the security upgrades to President Jacob Zuma’s private home in Nkandla. “We see our leaders putting themselves first. There is no way we can justify the expenditure (on Nkandla),” she says.

“Who does he (Zuma) fear in Nkandla? Is it those people knocking on his gate saying ‘president we are hungry’?”

Kasrils says the ANC had a tremendous record until recently and it was a record he was proud of. However the “rose-tinted” glasses needed to come off. “When we enter an election… let’s enter the public debate,” he says.

“What did Mandela say when we were coming into power? He said if we do not deliver and solve the problems of the people then they have a right to fight against us,” he says.

Kasrils says veterans of the ANC could no longer be quiet. They had to set an example.The stalwart said he did not vote for the ANC in the last elections, however this time he decided to come out into the open and make it public.

The campaign had a list of signatories, which included former University of SA vice-chancellor Barney Pityana, former senior civil servant in the fisheries ministry Horst Kleinschmidt, cartoonist Zapiro, Bram Fischer’s daughter Ilse, author and painter Breyten Breytenbach and academics Vishwas Satgar and Devan Pillay.

Satgar, who joined Kasrils and Madlala-Routledge on Tuesday, said in 2011 over 600 000 voters spoilt their ballots. He believed this campaign was a “democracy project”, and that it belonged to all South Africans. – Additional reporting by Sapa

Click below to listen to Former deputy health minister, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge.

Click below to watch the full video of the launch of the Sidikiwe Vukani! Vote Campaign:

– By Sthembiso Sithole, Nina Oosthuizen

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