Red Berets set their sights on ousting ANC in Kwazulu-natal
THE ECONOMIC Freedom Fighters (EFF) in Kwazulu-natal (KZN) has a new sheriff in town and he is taking over the province in the next general elections in his cross hairs.
Mongezi Twala, the newly elected provincial chairperson of the EFF in KZN, said the party was ready to win the poll, and capitalise on the ANC’S and other parties’ “decline in reaching the ceiling”.
Twala, who was elected last weekend at the party’s Provincial People’s Assembly in Durban, said that in their quest of getting a million voters, they would be targeting voters in townships and the rural areas.
Speaking at the People’s Assembly last weekend, EFF leader Julius Malema commended outgoing chairperson Vusi Khoza for helping the EFF grow in KZN before handing the reins to Twala.
Twala said his priority was to ensure the party had solid structures in place to ensure it was rooted, and responded to people in communities because the communities no longer had leaders.
“There is a serious vacuum”, he said. “We want to be firmly in place in townships such Umlazi, Kwamashu and in Pietermaritzburg townships like
Sobantu and Imbali. We really need the rural vote and also from farm dwellers who are abused by farmers,” Twala said.
He said that the rural vote had been the terrain of the ANC and IFP, but the EFF wanted to change that.
Another key target for Twala and the EFF in reaching their goal of a million voters was to attract professionals to the party. To do this, he said, they would encourage the youth constituency to participate in elections.
“The youth are demoralised over how things are happening in the country, but we want to encourage the youth and those still at high school level, colleges and universities to register to vote so that we grow our numbers,” Twala said.
With most political parties, including the IFP and DA, holding that coalitions were the future of South African politics, Twala said their ambition was to gain victory in the elections outright.
The reason for this, Twala said, was that coalitions would not allow them to implement their policies in the manner that they would want, as parties had different policies which often led to clashes when implementing programmes.
Speaking on his contestation with
Khoza for the EFF’S top job in the province, Twala said that the People’s Assembly had been held in accordance with the party’s constitution and all processes had been fair and above board, with all candidates having had equal opportunities to lobby.
Dr Fikile Vilakazi, a political analyst from the University of Kwazulu-natal, said the EFF’S performance in students’ representative council elections where the EFF Student Command won all five campuses was indicative of its growth in the province.
“What we are seeing in KZN is a rapid rise of the EFF in various political spheres, both in the student movement and in communities and they are becoming one of the strongest opposition parties.
“This is due to the current economic climate in the province with the ANC decline and all kind of problems that the ANC is facing which are giving oppositions to really have a strong voice,” Vilakazi said.
However, Vilakazi said that she did not think the EFF would necessarily achieve its target of a million voters by the next general election.