POLOKWANE- As part of the ANC’s voter registration mobilisation programme the deputy president of the party, Mr Cyril Ramaphosa, visited the Limpopo province on Sunday.
His visit started with a brief meeting at ANC provincial office in Polokwane, and a community interaction with the locals.
This interaction was not that successful as several national newspapers reported that the deputy president received a chilly welcome on the streets of Julius Malema’s neighbourhood in Seshego Zone 1.
According to The Star newspaper, Ramaphosa was not only shunned by the locals but received negative comments about his remarks. He was quoted as saying, “If all South Africans don’t vote, we will regress. The Boers will come back to control us.”
This was after one community member reportedly refused to shake his hand as he was walking the streets of Seshego; the deputy was also reportedly chased away by a homeowner.
Opposition parties were angered by Ramaphosa’s comments, most labelling them as “racist” remarks. COPE’s Mr Mosiuoa Lekota said it was irresponsible for Ramaphosa to agitate racial hatred among the citizens in pursuit of votes. “We never expected such disregard for the Constitution, by the very man who contributed in its drafting,” he said.
The DA spokesman Mr Mmushi Maimane said the ANC was pressing the panic button. “As Jacob Zuma’s ANC sees its power slipping, it reverts more and more to tired racial insinuations and the supernatural to convince supporters to stick with them.
“First it was the fires of hell. Now it is the ghosts of the apartheid regime that are being invoked to scare voters into staying with a party that deserted them a long time ago.”
Freedom Front Plus leader, Mr Pieter Mulder, called Ramaphosa’s comments “racist”. “Apart from the fact that such a statement is not based on any real facts, it is also racist and polarising.”
Meanwhile Ramaphosa has defended his comments saying it was unfortunate his statement had caused offence.
“In my conversation with a Seshego resident I warned of the danger of the country going backwards and used a term that has commonly been used by black South Africans to refer to the erstwhile apartheid regime,” Ramaphosa defended himself..
The ANC’s provincial spokesman, Mr Sipho Dikgale, told this reporter that the deputy’s comments were blown out of proportion. He added that their voter registration mobilisation was a success and opposition parties just wanted to derail them.
