Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
EFF eyes large tracts of open land next to city’s wealthy areas – convener
ECONOMIC Freedom Fighters (EFF) in the Western Cape have their eyes set on tracts of open land near wealthy suburbs – like the Tokai forest – to solve Cape Town’s housing problems.
That’s according to the party’s provincial electoral strategist, who says the EFF needs to convince one million Western Cape voters who “go to bed hungry” that its economic message of nationalisation and wealth-redistribution is credible enough to improve their lives, its provincial electoral strategist has said.
The party’s Western Cape convener Nazier Paulsen, who will guide its provincial getout-to-vote strategy, said potential EFF voters still lived in “conditions as dire as they were under apartheid”, and had been let down by successive Western Cape governments.
The party wanted to win one million of the province’s estimated 2.6 million voters.
In the last general election, just under 2 million votes were cast in the province.
Paulsen, a junior lecturer in software development at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, said the party would focus in the Western Cape on wealth gaps in the runup to next year’s elections.
“We want one South Africa. Not a South Africa of Claremont, Crawford and Gugulethu,” the 45 year old said.
There are large tracts of undeveloped land near wealthy suburbs where the party would build houses.
“If you want a really fancy garden to go and walk about, we will build one in Gugulethu, where everyone can go.”
Paulsen said that if the party could overcome the scepticism of voters who “feel for- gotten” by the DA and ANC, and lack jobs and housing, these voters could become the cornerstone of the party’s provincial voting blocks.
“In 20 years of democracy three political parties have governed the Western Cape, and none of them have managed to change the material conditions of the masses,” he said.
“We know in certain areas we could dominate – you could almost close off those areas – because the people have been let down by every political organisation.”
Paulsen said the party’s unashamedly radical economic message, which includes the nationalisation of mines into a state-owned mining company, would help their votes tally.
He was insistent the party was planning to win the province outright, and wouldn’t use next year’s elections simply to test the waters.
While Paulsen didn’t want to give away information on the “blocs” where it expected high support, he mentioned the Cape Flats and township areas.
He said that, even if other parties had the “will” to improve the lives of the poor, the country’s capitalist economic structure meant they couldn’t.
Paulsen said the party would have skills to govern due to its network of professionals.