DA maps out alternative
GAP: PARTY SEES ELECTION AS CHANCE TO ENTER GOVT OUTSIDE W CAPE
First 100 days will include legislation to rescue SA from 5 key sources of collapse.
Fixing parliament, ending load shedding, sorting out cadre appointments, halving violent crimes and growing the economy – that is the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) blueprint to rescue South Africa, its leader, John Steenhuisen, said yesterday.
Steenhuisen outlined the party’s plan of action for the first 100 days under a DA-led government after the elections later this year.
“The year 2024 will be a transition to rescue South Africa from corruption and state collapse,” he said. “The scale of change this year’s election can bring is like nothing else we have witnessed since 1994.”
Steenhuisen said for the first time this year the ANC will lose its majority nationally and in many provinces in the country.
“This will also be the first time the DA has a pathway to enter provincial and national government beyond the borders of the Western Cape.”
Steenhuisen said many sceptics had been proved wrong about the Multi-Party Charter of South Africa, as the level of inter-party cooperation was unprecedented in the history of South African democracy.
“It shows that, in this election, we are serious. We are serious about offering voters a credible alternative that can win. We are serious about defeating the ANC and keeping the Economic Freedom Fighters and other radicals out of government.
“Above all, we are serious about rescuing South Africa,” he said.
President Cyril Ramaphosa chose cadres over the country when he publicly said that he refused to act against the deputy president he had appointed, despite alarming evidence of the systemic corruption and capture of Paul Mashatile, Steenhuisen said.
“Within the first 100 days in office, the DA will introduce legislation aimed at rescuing our country from five key sources of state collapse,” he said.
The key sources include fixing parliament; ending load shedding by embracing privatisation; abolishing cadre deployment in favour of merit-based appointments and a capable state; halving the rate of violent crimes such as murder, attempted murder and gender-based violence, and growing the economy while protecting social grants.
“It is time for South Africa to stop beating around the bush. We live in a failing state that cannot even fix potholes. “That same state is never going to end load shedding,” he said. Steenhuisen said the DA would launch their election manifesto at the Union Buildings on 17 February.
DA chief whip Siviwe Gwarube said it was equally important to be a government in waiting and one that was ready.
Gwarube said they were here to show South Africa what the alternative was.
“Ahead of the State of the Nation Address, we want to say to South Africans have a unique opportunity to get a new government,” she said.
It was really as easy as voting, she said. “People often underestimate the power of their vote. Your vote is powerful because it can bring about change.”
Gwarube said it was in the interest of a failing government to keep people away from the polls.
“Show up and vote differently. It’s as simple as changing your vote or voting differently,” she said.
Your vote is powerful because it can bring about change