Only through the ballot box can voters remove a government or leaders from power and “not through the burning of tyres, schools or public property,” South Africa’s opposition Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema has told his supporters.
“You don’t even have to wear an EFF T-shirt on election day. You can go quietly and vote for EFF,” Malema told scores of EFF supporters in Enseleni, KwaZulu-Natal Province, on Monday.
“Why put yourself in danger for removing a mayor or a government by protesting, when you can easily remove them quietly with a vote?” he said amid applause from the supporters.”
Malema, on the campaign trail of KwaZulu Natal Province this week to garner votes for the crucial May national polls, touched on the sensitive issue of “land expropriation without compensation.”
He urged the voters to cast their ballots for the EFF on 8 May in order for the land to be “returned to its rightful owners (Africans). If you want to open businesses, the land is coming. All of us need land.”
Malema told the supporters that they needed land more (than the current state-funded houses the government offers for free to poor South Africans) because when they eventually found a job, they “would need to have land to extend their homes into bigger structures.”
According to him, if the supporters want positive results after May, they must switch their votes from other political parties to his EFF.
“Vote for EFF because EFF is not afraid of white people,” he said, promising “job opportunities” to South Africans after the polls.
NM/jn/APA