De Lille asks voters to give Good a chance
GOOD leader Patricia de Lille wrapped up her small-town campaigning for Wednesday’s elections with a courtyard meeting in Worcester on Saturday.
Her message to voters was simple: “I know you feel let down by all the unfulfilled promises that have been made by the ANC and DA in government, and that you still feel like second- and third-class citizens in your own country.
“You can vote for more of the same or you can lend Good your vote for five years, and put us to the test.”
Addressing Good supporters crammed into the courtyard of Roodewal Flats, De Lille said she had visited hundreds of small towns across the country over the past three months, and heard similar stories wherever she went.
“People don’t have work, they don’t have enough food to eat, and they don’t feel their municipalities or the richer folk in town regard improving their lives as a priority,” she said.
“Farmworkers whose families have served farm owners for generations are being replaced by contract workers and evicted from their homes.
“They drift to town, to raise their children in shacks on isolated land without any services and far from potential work – because municipalities reserve more suitable land that may be available to sell to developers for profit. These people’s lives are not improving; they are deteriorating.
“The face of poverty is that of a woman of colour. She is a single parent and she doesn’t have a job. She battles to provide for her children, but what chance does she have of breaking the dehumanising cycle?’
De Lille said the fact that people were going to bed hungry was a disgrace in a country that produced a surplus of food. Food and potable-water security featured high on Good’s plan to fix South Africa.
“We need a food and water revolution,” she said. “Commercial farmers grow food for export while their neighbours put hungry children to bed. The state had to subsidise commercial farmers where necessary to produce food for local people.
“In the mining areas, rivers that people have historically used as their domestic water supply are being contaminated. The mining companies pipe clean water to feed their operations, but not for local people. I saw several instances in North West where water pipelines pass directly through communities that have no water to drink,” the former mayor said.
She said South Africa was becoming famous for government corruption and state capture.
“It seems that just about every town has its own version of the Zumas and the Guptas.
“I don’t think we should treat politicians and officials any differently to how we treat members of prison gangs or any other criminals. Investigate their crimes, try them and lock them up – don’t send them to Parliament.”
De Lille said people living in the cities did not realise the extent of drug abuse and gangsterism in towns. Good’s plan to fix South Africa contained a new approach to confronting these issues, based on the successful Colombian model.
“Instead of sending out more and more police, with more guns, to fight the war on drugs or the war on gangs – which was tried and failed – the Colombians realised that putting more social services and fewer guns on the streets was the better model.
She ended her address with an appeal to registered voters to set aside their disappointment in the old parties and vote for change. Wherever she went, people had told her they couldn’t be bothered to vote.
“If you don’t exercise your right to vote, then it wouldn’t be right for you to sit and complain next week,” she said. |