Julius Malema wants his party to build support in the Eastern Cape and KZN
EFF leader Julius Malema says his party will focus on boosting its support in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape‚ in order to reduce the ANC majority to below 50% of the vote in the 2019 elections.
Speaking during an hour-long interview with Ukhozi FM on Wednesday evening‚ Malema said the EFF has performed beyond expectations since its formation four years ago.
Malema took time off from the campaign trail across KwaZulu-Natal ahead of the party’s fourth birthday celebrations‚ due to be held in Durban’s Curries Fountain Stadium‚ on Saturday.
Malema‚ along with other EFF leaders‚ visited campuses‚ informal settlements and townships to drum up support ahead of Saturday’s rally.
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Malema urged supporters to join the party‚ saying 10 head of cattle would be slaughtered and eaten in the stadium to mark these festivities.
He said the EFF chose KwaZulu-Natal for the celebration for its potential to grow the party’s support. The EFF received 1.8% of the vote and 2.3% in the 2014 and 2016 elections‚ respectively‚ and is now looking to vastly improve that.
Malema said KwaZulu-Natal had 5-million eligible voters‚ 4-million of whom voted in the 2014 general elections. "The ANC has been growing in this province. We want to disrupt this growth by increasing our potential in KwaZulu-Natal.
"Our support in this province is not where we would like it to be. When we visited areas like Mawoti and others we saw that poverty is not theory. There you can touch poverty with your own hands. We have asked people to use the EFF to fight their battles‚" Malema said.
"They talk about the corruption they see. They see that people are hiring their girlfriends and the tenders go to their relatives. We will be raising some the things that they told us when we go to the National Assembly‚" he said.
The EFF leader said his party was not in coalition with the DA but had decided to vote with the party to get rid of ANC corruption in municipalities.
"We saw that giving the ANC municipal funds would be like taking an ATM‚ a card and pin and leaving it with Zuma in his bedroom. We know that all the money will disappear because the guy is extremely corrupt.
"We saw that the DA — while they are still committed to protecting white interests and white wealth — are not thieves like the ANC and they will not loot municipal funds and they don’t have too much power. So we decided to vote with them. But it is not a carte blanche vote; we are constantly monitoring them‚" he said.
Malema said his party wanted to do well in the 2019 general election and would consider coalitions thereafter.
"We will hold talks with the DA but if they don’t agree with us on the question of expropriation we will not go into a coalition with them. We will also talk to the ANC because by then Zuma – who is extremely corrupt – will no longer be there. If we agree with the ANC on the question of land we can form a coalition with them‚" he said.
Malema said that despite the economic inequality in SA‚ it was possible to get to a point where black South Africans were as wealthy as their white counterparts.
He said this could be achieved not through corruption‚ but through land acquisition‚ mass skills development and focused economic empowerment.
- BusinessLIVE