DA slams ANC’s ‘vote-buying tactics’ in election campaign

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has not only complained to the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) about ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule for alleged vote buying, but it is going after the ruling party for the “sponsored” violent protests in DA-led administrations.

Magashule was caught on video handing out two R200 notes to a Philippi woman to buy food during his door-to-door campaign in the Western Cape at the weekend, which the party said was indicative of how low the ANC would stoop to cling to power.

Magashule later denied he was buying votes, saying he was trying to help out a struggling family.

The DA said the “cash handout stunt” amounted to vote buying and an infringement of clause 9 (2) (a) (iii) of Schedule 2 of the Electoral Act and that the Electoral Commission of SA’s (IEC) Code of Conduct prohibited the use of a financial inducement for a vote.

To exploit the plight of the poor as Magashule had allegedly done was degrading, Mike Moriarty, the DA’s principal representative on the IEC’s party liaison committee, said yesterday.

He said ANC’s desperation to cling to power knew no bounds, as witnessed by the recent ANC-sponsored protests in DA-led municipalities in Johannesburg, Tshwane and the Western Cape.

“The reality is that under an ANC government, over 50% of South African families are poor and almost 10 million people are unemployed. This is an ANC created problem that they are now pretending to solve by handing out money on the campaign trail. To trap people into poverty and then bait them with money in exchange for their votes is appalling, even for the ANC,” Moriarty said.

DA leader Mmusi Maimane said the protests were part of the ANC’s election strategy and that they were endorsed by President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Yesterday, Maimane, brought leaders of all DA-led administrations to Constitutional Hill in Braamfontein to detail their respective area’s experience of what the party say was a clear ANC driven agenda to destabilise DA-run administrations.

He said it wanted immediate attention to the protests, saying the violence was to shift attention away from the ruling party’s failures over the past 25 years.

Maimane said they have names, pictures and video material of ANC councillors issuing instructions and calling for people to support the shutdown protests which, he said, would be handed over to the police and to the IEC.

“While these violent protests were intended to appear as community-driven, it has become embarrassingly evident that the protests have been initiated and sustained by the ANC,” he said .

“This cheap, dangerous politicking is not being carried out by a few rogue elements in the ANC. It is the party’s election campaign strategy, endorsed and approved by the president himself.

“This is evidenced by his decision to go to Alexandra – the epicentre of these protests – to campaign in ANC colours.”

– siphom@citizen.co.za

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