APC aiming for a million votes in elections, says Godi

The African People’s Convention aims to garner at least a million votes out of the more than 26 million registered voters in the May 8 general elections, APC leader Themba Godi said on Saturday.

“The issue for us striving for a million votes is a decision of the central executive committee of the APC … with a million votes we will have at least 25 seats in the national assembly and representation in all the nine provinces. This we believe will be a good enough number for us to have a substantive impact on government policy and governance issues,”  he said while on the campaign trail in Motlhabe, about 83km from Rustenburg in the Moses Kotane municipality.

The ACP obtained 30 676 votes in 2014, giving the party one seat in the national assembly, less than the 35 867 votes it received in the 2009 general elections. In the North West, the APC increased its share of the votes to 4 398 in 2014 compared to 3 744 in 2009.

Godi told party supporters in Motlhabe that Africans had not benefited from the gains of democracy over the past 25 years.

“The economic trajectory in the country has not  been changed. The majority party has not been able to transform the economy. For the past 25 years the majority party has always sought to appease white people, and what has happened is that it is the Indians in the main who have taken advantage of the democratic space to move up in the economy ladder.

“It is this two groupings which constitute about ten percent of the population that has possibly benefited from this democracy,” he claimed.

In its 2019 elections manifesto, the ACP commits to good governance, fighting corruption, transforming the economy, creating jobs, and delivering basic services to the people.

Godi also did a walkabout at the Moruleng and Boitekong malls. On Sunday he will attend a church service at the Apostolic Church in Itsoseng, near Lichtenburg, before conducting a door-to-door campaign at Tlhabologang in Coligny.

– African News Agency (ANA)

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.