EFF leader Julius Malema has taken his election campaign to the community of Eldorado Park.
Malema, who addressed the community gathered at Don Mateman Hall as part of the party’s manifesto town hall meeting yesterday (Wednesday), said the notion that communities such as Eldorado Park were dangerous and drug-infested must stop as crime and other social ills affected everyone and should not be used as an excuse to pigeon-hole the country’s coloured communities.
“I am here to say to you, this is my home. I belong here and to the coloured community. They belong to me and we are one as nothing can separate us. Your problems are my problem. When I fight corruption, when I fight stealing from our government, I am thinking of you. I want your children to be liberated and be part of those communities that are prospering,” he said.
“I do not like this thing that every time we speak of drugs, we think of the coloured community. We need to destroy that. When we speak of gangsters, we think of the coloured community and when we speak of unemployment and alcohol, we speak of the coloured community. We need to fight all those social ills in this community... Eldorado Park will never be dangerous for me as long as my people are living there,” he said.
Malema said it was unfair for the coloured and black communities to be living in old dilapidated buildings, adding that it was not true that foreigners were taking jobs from the hands of South African as investors and ANC corruption were at the centre of the country’s economic woes.
“The problem is crime and not who is committing crime. So we must not normalise that these people are taking our jobs... I hear that they have taken jobs but you have not worked since matric because they were taken by the ANC. The problem is not Zimbabwean but the corruption of the ANC.
“There are no jobs because of the economy. The economy is not growing because white people are not investing back into the economy. It is the corruption of the ANC and white people that is making our economy to be stagnant,” he said.
He said the coloured community should be empowered to ensure they benefit from the manufacturing industry, adding that it was time to refrain from voting for gangsters as they did in the local government elections.
“Eldorado Park, we are going to a national and provincial election. Do not make the same mistake of the previous elections. You cannot leave the country in the hands of gangsters. This is the only organisation that represents all South Africans,” he said.
On the issue of load shedding, Malema said load shedding was man-made and would return just after the elections.
“They suspended load shedding for elections. During rugby, they suspended load shedding. After they paraded the cup, load shedding came back and went to stage six and it is going to come back on (May) 29 midnight when we are counting the votes because they want to steal votes. They must find Eldorado Park ready.”
The Star