Cash and promises litter the campaign trail

HAVING used pit toilets all her life and heard countless broken promises from politicians, Susan Montshoa, 83, was not easily convinced when President Jacob Zuma promised her water and a new toilet.

“I’ve been voting for the ANC since 1994 but I have nothing to show for it,” she said shortly after Zuma left her modest twobedroom house on Friday.

Montshoa’s house was Zuma’s first stop when he visited Mabopane’s Block A, north of Pretoria, as part of the ANC’s election campaign.

The pensioner said Zuma told her that basic services would be introduced to the area now that it falls under Gauteng and no longer North West.

“I’ll see it when it happens . . . these big people make promises and then never come back. They will say: ‘We found them with nothing so we don’t have to give them anything.’ I hope he fulfils his promise.”

Zuma was on a door-to-door campaign in the townships of Soshanguve, Mabopane and GaRankuwa, where he seemed to be in a giving mood.

He doled out ANC T-shirts to supporters in the homes that he visited, gave R1 000 to Hezekiel Senyolo, 68, for “groceries” and repeated his promise at every house that he visited.

Senyolo was more enthusias- tic about Zuma’s visit. “He is the best. He said he will give us water and toilets and take us out of these asbestos houses which make us sick,” said Senyolo, firmly clenching the R200 notes handed to him by the president.

Zuma’s main opponent, Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille, took her party’s campaign to Blue Downs in the Cape Flats yesterday. About 4 000 supporters heard her attack the ANC over corruption.

She asked voters to judge the DA by its track record of governing the Western Cape, where, she said, 70% of all new jobs in South Africa had been created.

Zille said provincial departments in the Western Cape had no clean audits when the ANC was voted out of power in the province in 2009, but the DA had achieved 12 clean departmental audits last year.

There is no good story to tell . . . African leaders have stolen from African people

“We can bring the same story of progress to every corner of South Africa — but only if the voters vote us into government,” she said.

Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema spent much of the weekend in Mpumalanga. He accused Zuma and ANC deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa of being more interested in cattle and buffalo, respectively, than in voters.

He lambasted the ANC, accusing the party of stealing from the poor, and derided its statement that it had a “good story” to tell. “There is no good story to tell. But there is a miserable story to tell: African leaders have stolen from African people,” he told a rally in Mashishing township in Lydenburg.

Malema travelled in a convoy of seven cars, including four police vehicles. The convoy was given VIP treatment and did not stop for traffic lights.

Malema addressed four small gatherings on Friday, urging people to attend his provincial rally in Thulamahashe today. He promised the first 5 000 people to enter the stadium free EFF berets and T-shirts.

He repeatedly told his supporters in Bushbuckridge and Lydenburg how millions of rands had been spent at Nkandla on a kraal for Zuma’s cattle, a “fire pool” and spaza shop.

Ramaphosa had bought a buffalo for R18-million while people from his village in Venda had no running water, said Malema.