The DA announced that Helen Zille will run for mayor of Johannesburg.
DA leader John Steenhuisen says Johannesburg residents should not waste their votes on smaller political parties in next year’s local government elections.
He was speaking in Soweto on Saturday at the unveiling of the party’s mayoral candidate for the City of Johannesburg.
Steenhuisen blames small parties for keeping ANC in power
“Let me make this clear if you split your vote and vote for smaller parties you are going to get five years of what you have had for the last five years and the five years before that and the five years before that,” he said.
According to Steenhuisen smaller political parties have enabled the ANC to remain in power in Johannesburg through a coalition arrangement.
“You cannot trust parties that take your vote and turn it around and give it to the very same people that you voted against like ActionSA has done in Tshwane, they get trapped in these unstable coalitions and Johannesburg cannot afford, south Africa cannot afford another five years of a revolving door at the mayor’s office.
“We need stability we need a leader with integrity we need a vision that is going to take the city around and we need the people that are going to do it,” he said.
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Steenhuisen said Johannesburg should also not vote for new parties that have recently entered the political space.
‘No time to teach ANC how to govern’
Meanwhile, DA Gauteng leader Solly Msimanga said the DA does not have time to teach the ANC how to govern in municipalities.
He was responding to controversial comments that ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa made during the week.
Ramaphosa told ANC councilors that they could learn from DA run municipalities on how to produce clean financial audits.
“We do not have time to teach people not to steal but we have time to implement projects, we do not have time to teach people not to kill each other over tenders…We do not have time Mr. President to teach your councilors, your mayors and speakers not to fight among themselves but we have time to fight for the residents of Johannesburg,” he said.
ALSO READ: ‘Decay stops here, renewal starts now,’ says Steenhuisen as DA soft-launches election campaign
Msimanga said Johannesburg’s success is important for the entire province of Gauteng.
“A Johannesburg that works means the veins that are running full of blood that will be able to nourish the entire body that is Gauteng and a whole body that is South Africa,” he said.
The community of Mofolo in Soweto was full of blue T-shirts as DA supporters from all over Johannesburg came to the Eyethu Shopping Centre to listen to the announcement of Zille as Joburg’s new mayoral candidate.
At the event, a video of Zille visiting the places that are important to her upbringing in Johannesburg was shown.
However, she described parts of Johannesburg, that she was raised in, as having decayed and become dangerous.
