EFF takes election campaign to Robben Island

The EFF took its election campaign to Robben Island, claiming to be the first political party to lobby for votes on the historic outcrop.

It put up 20 election posters and visited five homes during a door-to-door campaign on Thursday.

The EFF's head of elections in the Western Cape, Godrich Gardee, told TimesLIVE it was significant for the party to campaign at the World Heritage Site, which he described as the home of the liberation of SA.

Many black leaders who fought in the historical wars of resistance against land dispossession and the second generation of activists who fought in the struggle for liberation were imprisoned on the island, he said.

“We have come here to salute those heroes,” said Gardee.

The party was allowed to campaign in the villages and not the tourist route, he said.

Results from the heritage site's voting station are normally the first to be announced by the IEC. The voting station has a mere 144 registered voters.

Of the 143 registered voters in 2016, only 56 people cast their votes, with the EFF getting only five of those. In the May 2019 general election, of the 51 people who voted, 26 voted for the ANC and 14 for the EFF.

“We are a growing party on Robben Island,” said Gardee.

He said they were hoping to grow even further this time around and snatch the voting district from the ANC, which mustered 27 votes in August 2016.

“We can confirm that the EFF were granted permission to campaign on Robben Island today. Their request entailed the mounting of posters on street poles, as well as conducting door-to-door visits to the residents within the village precinct,” said Robben Island's Morongoa Ramaboa.

She said they were not aware of similar requests to campaign on the island in the past but there was a possibility that the EFF was not the first political party to do so.

Ramaboa said there were about 150 residents on the island, some of whom were eligible to vote. This number consists of the Robben Island Museum employees and service providers or contractors.

TimesLIVE