INLSA
IFP President Mangosuthu Buthelezi waves to supporters as he arrives in KwaXolo in southern KwaZulu-Natal at the start of his campaign for next years national elections. PICTURE: Sbonelo Ngcobo
Durban – IFP president Mangosuthu Buthelezi on Sunday began campaigning for next year’s national elections, urging people to vote with a conscience.
“I am here to remind the people that their vote is very important,” he told reporters, before addressing the crowd at a rally in KwaXolo in southern KwaZulu-Natal, an ANC stronghold.
“I have lived amongst these people, and it is natural for me to be here.”
Dressed in a colourful shirt and his trademark sunglasses, Buthelezi emerged through the sun top of an Audi Q7, singing and waving to his supporters, and then joined in the singing and dancing as he entered the marquee.
Noting that the country had celebrated Freedom Day on Saturday, he said 19 years into democracy, the apartheid government had been replaced by “many enemies just as dastardly and just as punishing”.
“We still have a common enemy, as we did during apartheid, but our common enemy is now poverty, underdevelopment, unemployment and poor service,” he said.
He launched a scathing attack on the ANC, saying it was being held to ransom by Sadtu, which was calling for Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga to be fired.
“What hurts me most is seeing teachers on a go-slow, hurling panties with a ministers name in the air. They are diminishing a minister’s reputation. Teachers continue to march in the streets, while learners sit alone in classrooms.”
While he admitted the majority of the community in KwaXolo had voted for the ANC in the 2011 local government elections, he claimed this was because the ruling party had won votes for the “wrong reasons”.
He alleged provincial ANC chairman Senzo Mchunu had recently laughed with a Mail Guardian journalist, apparently telling the reporter the ANC took KwaZulu-Natal because President Jacob Zuma arrived at rallies in helicopters and handed out free food.
“Food parcels are bought with taxpayers’ money – your money,” he said.
People needed to take the food hampers but vote with a conscience, he told the crowd.
The Mercury
