The EFF leader and president Julius Malema’s charm is rapidly rubbing off on the elderly citizens spreading like a wildfire. This became evident on Tuesday and Wednesday morning, May 7 and 8, when he turned on the charm in Bushbuckridge and Elukwatini respectively leaving senior citizens drooling for more and pledging their support to the EFF in the upcoming national and general elections.
The elections are scheduled for May 29 and political pundits are already anticipating a tight race to the finish line.
Traditionally, senior citizens in the country, especially in the rural parts of Mpumalanga, such as Bushbuckridge, Nkomazi, Mkhondo, and the former kwaNdebele areas in the Nkangala region, have always been associated with the ANC, but the tide is slowly turning with Malema’s EFF attracting the most.
Malema was brave enough to take his party’s election campaign in the villages of Bushbuckridge, a known stronghold of the ANC.
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“The EFF is not home to only young people. It is also home to abogogo nabo mkhulu and I am happy to see so many of them here today,” said Malema when addressing throngs of party supporters on Tuesday May 7.
His campaign in Bushbuckridge attracted more elderly citizens than ever before, a feat which Malema said was a good omen for greater things to come.
He also used this platform and lashed out at the current ruling party for failing to provide basic services especially for struggling black communities.
He said the government builds and donates RDP houses the size of a matches box and without flushing toilets inside.
“When we take over power, the EFF will build decent housing units for our people, which will have corners and flushing toilets. The stands will be big enough for beneficiaries and occupants to also dream big. There’s not a single white person that doesn’t have toilets that flush. They would never do that to white people, how can they do that to us. We will show them who we are on May 29, because how can you go to a polling station without a flush toilet and vote for them. The same people who have kept you from having a flush toilet for 30 years,” said Malema.
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He also questioned the timing of the suspension of load-shedding. He argued that there has never been an electricity crisis in South Africa to begin with, but a political ploy to sell Eskom. “They made a crisis of electricity because they wanted to give independent power producers electricity generation. And now that we are going to the polls all of a sudden there is no load-shedding. How does load-shedding know that we are going to the polls?”
He will spend the rest of the week campaigning in areas such as eMalahleni and the DR JS Moroka.
The views expressed in this report are those of the relevant interviewees and the parties they represent, and are not held by this publication.
