EFF KZN gunning for one million votes in 2024
TWENTY-five thousand EFF KZN supporters will be headed to Johannesburg this week in self-funded buses to be part of the festivities planned for next Saturday.
Each province has been allocated a grandstand and 316 buses have been acquired to transport provincial supporters.
Members of Parliament and of the provincial legislature will each be paying for at least 10 buses while each councillor will pay for one bus.That’s the plan to get to the 10-year anniversary celebrations, according to Mongezi Twala, chairperson of the EFF in KwaZulu-Natal.
Twala told the Sunday Tribune that the rally would be a celebration of the “unbroken struggle of the economic emancipation of the people”. He said they were not dependent on sponsors but were funding their own “revolution”.
“We are all playing a pivotal role in ensuring that there is requisition and payment of buses. We have 164 councillors who came on board and adhered to the call from the central command team. Student command teams are on the ground, mobilising students, and we have a good crowd of about 4 000 that we are taking to the FNB Stadium.”
Twala said although the party had grown exponentially, there was still room for improvement within the province. He said in the 2014 general elections, the party received at least 70 000 votes, which contributed towards the one million votes that EFF received nationally.
“With two members in the legislature at the time, this meant that we now had a word in the KZN government even though it was on opposition benches. We started to champion the issues of our marginalised people by participating in the provincial legislature.”
Twala said that in 2016 the number of councillors had grown to 64, with representation in the majority of municipalities except for Umvoti and uMzinyathi districts.
“In 2019 we grew from 70 000 to 359 000, which gives us the notion that there is still good room for growth in the province. That is what we are working on, to get not less than one million votes in KZN. We have been on the ground trying to be the voice of the voiceless because in South Africa there has never been a radical movement other than the EFF in the
democratic dispensation.”
In April, a number of EFF councillors were expelled after being found guilty of allegedly persuading their colleagues to dump the party and jump ship to the IFP in exchange for money and positions. Twala said some of the councillors who had been poached would be welcomed back as they have shown regret; however, they would be required to undergo rehabilitation programmes.
“The EFF is a threat, so any political party that is a puppet of a white monopoly capital, those who are in the commanding hives of our country and the captains of industries, will try by all means to dwarf the EFF by infiltrating and luring our people with money. We are going to welcome them back, but from time to time we will monitor their readiness to rejoin the organisation.”
Major plans are under way for next year’s general election and Twala said they were contesting to win the province. He said most municipalities were on autopilot, that there was an undeniable lack of decisive leadership and a high level of incompetence. Therefore, once in power the EFF would tighten the screws at local government level.
“Our people are living in squalor and are in dire deplorable conditions due to lack of political will from politicians whose mission is self-enrichment using ratepayers’ money.
“We are forever recycling deadwood, officials who have no will to see our communities living in better conditions. Our focus will be giving our people proper service delivery.”
Twala raised concern with the increasing crime in KZN, saying the party had attempted to get the attention of the president to its out-of-control levels earlier this year.
“If we do not zoom in or get the government to focus on fighting crime, our streets are going to be controlled by gangsters. To this day, we don’t know who killed AKA, there are serious weaknesses in our police departments.
“During the Phoenix massacre, our people were killed in broad daylight, but certain murderers were acquitted.
“It is unfortunate that we have just lost a promising Independent Newspapers photojournalist and I can tell you now that the matter will not be resolved, it will be just like any other matter. We are calling our people to join hands and to fight with the EFF- as a country we need to join hands and find ways to ensure that we expose criminality and crime whenever it takes place.”
SUNDAY TRIBUNE