Durban — The Democratic Alliance (DA) embarked on a voter registration drive on Saturday urging all those eligible to vote to register so they could achieve quality service delivery.
The Democratic Alliance held its first national rally as part of their election campaign on Saturday, a build-up to the voter registration weekend, taking place on November 18 and 19. The event took place at the Durban Exhibition Centre.
People came out in their numbers to attend the event, including DA Federal Leader John Steenhuisen who delivered the keynote address.
According to Steenhuisen, the Multi-Party Charter was now polling at 50% in the province. He said that the ruling party was now a shadow of its former self due to the corruption and the misrule, and that is failure presented a new hope through the DA.
Steenhuisen said that people’s faith has increased since witnessing the DA and Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) forge a working relationship through the service delivery pact for KZN.
He added that the formation of the Multi-Party Charter for South Africa, uniting eight different political parties around a common vision and set of priorities also brought hope for citizens. Steenhuisen attributed the recent triumph by the Springboks to a lack of intervention by the ANC.
“The Springbok victory shows us how South Africa can thrive if we work together and rid ourselves of the curse that is this ANC government,” he said.
He said the DA’s latest internal polling showed that the Multi-Party Charter last week crossed the majority threshold in the KZN.
“The Charter is now polling at exactly 50 percent, while the ANC has collapsed to only 36 percent,” said Steenhuisen.
He said that the eight parties currently in the Charter represented a broad spectrum.
Asked about key issues to be addressed if elected as provincial premier, the Mayor of Umngeni and the party's premier candidate Chris Pappas said that while they recognised the issues that plagued the country, such as crime and infrastructure failures, small towns in the province were collapsing and that they needed to be revived to their former glory.
“Small issues that people do not think about are shack lords. People in shacks are renting. Why are people in informal settlements? We need to end that as a government if we really care for the people living in those spaces,” he said.
Pappas said that job creation was also important and that if stability was achieved in government, investment in infrastructure and partnership with the private sector so that they could grow their businesses, then job creation would be achieved.
Sunday Tribune