With election fever heating up, parties are criss-crossing the country to drum up support before this year’s general elections.
On Friday, Build One SA (Bosa) leader Mmusi Maimane was in Nelson Mandela Bay wooing potential voters in the hopes of getting enough signatures to meet the minimum threshold to enable his party to contest its maiden election.
Maimane, who was joined by his deputy, Nobuntu Hlazo-Webster, was in KwaNobuhle and Lapland, in Kariega, where he hoped to energise disgruntled residents to sign the Electoral Commission’s petition for new parties which he says will allow communities to elect their representatives in parliament.
“The reason parliament is so distant from the people is that it does not have leaders who come from the communities,” Maimane said.
“Anyone who is on a Bosa list has to produce signatures from the community they represent.
“Our message is let the people govern.
“Let us allow direct elections so people may elect their representatives.”
They also visited Mabandla in ward 44, where residents have been without water for two weeks.
In Lapland, residents complained they had been living in zinc structures for nearly 27 years.
Maimane said the Eastern Cape was not living up to its potential.
“Unemployment levels are way too high.
“Here in KwaNobuhle, it’s clear residents are missing basic services like water.
“Add [issues around] electricity and it becomes clear that this is a place we need to fight for and change.”
While he would not confirm how many signatures they had managed to get on paper, Maimane vowed that by the time President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the election date they would have met the threshold.
“What is clear is that, wherever people are, their race, ethnicity or social standing, they support the Bosa vision and are signing up,” Maimane said.
“In 2021, we supported many independent [candidates] and political parties to come together, and now they have come under one party which is Build One SA, and they support that vision.”
Chantel Dolph, who has signed up to be a Bosa champion, said too many young people in Lapland were unemployed.
“Our children are on drugs because they have nothing to do,” Dolph said.
“The streets are ruined with running sewage every day and some people have been living in shacks for 27 years.
“Some people are old, others have already died and yet we still live in houses that flood when it rains.”
Maggie Jacobs, who hosted Maimane and the Bosa leaders in Lapland, said the municipality had never delivered services for them.
“Everything is in KwaNobuhle.
“We have no police station or health clinic in this area.
“I am happy that Maimane came here so he can see our living conditions.”
HeraldLIVE