ActionSA president and Johannesburg mayoral candidate Herman Mashaba is adamant his party will not enter into a coalition government with the ANC, which he labels an “evil” organisation.
Mashaba was speaking at an ActionSA “Let’s fix South Africa” rally at Old Park Station in Newtown yesterday.
He was joined by the entire ActionSA leadership, including national chairman Michael Beaumont, provincial chairpersons John Moodey (Gauteng), Vytjie Mentor (Western Cape) and Dr Makhosi Khoza (KwaZulu-Natal), who is also the eThekwini mayoral candidate, as well as mayoral candidates for Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, Newcastle and KwaDukuza – Abel Tau, Tlhogi Moseki, Faizal Cassim, and Nel Sewraj, respectively.
National spokesperson Lerato Ngobeni and members of the party’s senate were also in attendance, as the party delivered what it calls a “message of tested service delivery and hope” to residents.
Mashaba did not mince his words in lambasting his political opponents in the highly-contested Joburg Metro, calling the ANC a “criminal syndicate” that attempted to fool South Africans with the idea that (President) Cyril Ramaphosa would change the country with his "New Dawn". The EFF was not spared, with Mashaba labelling the red berets anarchists.
“The DA tells you it ’gets things done’, but ask the people of our capital city if they agree after three mayors and a provincial administrator in just five years.
“The EFF loves anarchy, proposes policies that will destroy this country, sips tea with (former president) Jacob Zuma in Nkandla, and wants to open our borders to start the United States of Africa.
“To them I say you can go try that nonsense far away from here, not in South Africa and not on ActionSA’s watch,” he said.
Mashaba pointed out that he had assembled a leadership team that has a track record in fighting corruption that no other party can so much as dream of coming close to.
“When I was Mayor of Joburg, I didn’t just talk about fighting corruption. I actually fought it.
I appointed a former Scorpion to set up an anti-corruption unit which then investigated 6000 cases of corruption, totalling more than R35 billion in transactions, leading to over 800 arrests.
“Dr Makhosi Khoza, our eThekwini mayoral candidate, became an even bigger household name in this country, when she stood up to Jacob Zuma in the height of his power and said ’I will vote for an opposition sponsored motion of no confidence in you for selling out our country’.
“The reason why we have a State Capture Commission of Inquiry, is because of Vytjie Mentor, our Western Cape provincial chairperson, publicly exposing the Guptas for offering her a Cabinet position when others would have just taken it.
“I can say to you that ActionSA will fight corruption, because we have leaders that didn’t just talk about it, they actually fought it, because actions speak louder than words.”
Mashaba said when it comes to coalitions, ActionSA will never go into a coalition with the ANC. “We believe this because you cannot fix the problem by partnering with the cause of the problem.
“How can you live up to a promise to fight corruption while you are in coalition with the party responsible for the corruption? What madness is that?
“The truth is that voters who want an alternative to the ANC can vote for ActionSA knowing that we will never take their vote and give it to the ANC to continue destroying our country.
“We are committed to transparent coalition negotiations in which we make it known what the terms of the agreements are, and we make it known how people can hold parties in such coalitions to account.
“We commit ourselves to managing coalitions openly, transparently and always in the interests of the residents of each municipality, because we are a party that puts residents first and party politics second,” he said in his 30-minute speech.
“If you told me this political party would be on the cusp of leading the removal from power of the evil criminal enterprise which masquerades as a political party that has been abusing our country for 27 years, I would have personally arranged for your committal to an institution.”