Fight for Midvaal intensifies

A war of words broke out in Midvaal, Gauteng, yesterday as the ANC and DA brought out some of their heavyweights to contend for the hotly contested DA-led municipality.

ANC Youth League president Julius Malema, DA leader Helen Zille and MEC for local government and housing in the ANC-led Gauteng provincial government Humphrey Mmemezi all arrived in Midvaal with guns blazing to rouse their voter bases.

Mmemezi started off the day in the Sicelo Shiceka informal settlement, where he was met by a huge crowd of toyi-toying supporters sporting ANC T-shirts and waving the party's flags.

He announced the government had invested R5.7-million in the provision of 1000 temporary toilets for the local community.

Mmemezi accused the DA municipality of only providing services in white areas at the expense of poor black residents.

He promised the provincial government would replace the 4000 shacks with RDP houses within the next three years if Midvaal voted for the ANC, adding his office had already begun to purchase land for the project.

Malema arrived about two hours later to be met by a crowd singing: "Malema, my president."

"The president is going to liberate Midvaal from its apartheid shackles," Malema shouted.

He called on all those who qualified to vote to do so.

Malema encouraged supporters to talk to white voters, reminding them that "they are ANC too".

He said the ANC was a party that worked to break down racial barriers.

"A vote for the DA is a vote for apartheid," Malema said. "Helen Zille does not love you."

Later, at the nearby stadium in Meyerton, Zille spoke to a smaller crowd about her party's track record in Midvaal.

"Every day we move forward a little bit. Maybe you don't see it from day to day, but you can after five years. It's the same thing when you go backwards."

She said the DA had spent taxpayers' money to improve their lives, using the stadium as proof of what her party was capable of.

"I heard the young man was here today," she said of Malema. "He didn't come here to the stadium. He wouldn't know what to say."

Zille said she had been to Malema's ANC-run hometown of Seshego, Limpopo, and described it as a service-delivery nightmare, overrun by mice and rats.

"A mouse crawled up my pants, and I called him Julius!" she said to laughs.

Zille accused President Jacob Zuma of hiding a report on local government spending until after the elections. She said the report would reveal that some ANC municipalities had not done the necessary paperwork and that others were riddled with corruption. She also accused Malema of busing in supporters from Soweto and Sebokeng for his rally earlier in the day.

"The ANC wants to divide us," she said. "They say elections are about white people versus black people. They think that if they pretend it is a race contest, people will vote for them again."