BOKAMOSO | 12 great reasons to vote DA

6 May 2019

The following are two lists giving some great reasons to vote DA and some great reasons not to “vote for Cyril”. We hope they will be helpful in winning over those who are still undecided about how best to vote this week.

12 reason to vote DA

1. One-party dominance is failing SA. Our democracy urgently needs a strong alternative. We must build this at the centre of our politics and society. This is where the DA is located. 

2. The DA is the only sizable party that stands for the rule of law and a market-driven economy. 

3. DA is the only party with a solid track record in government. No other party on the national list has demonstrated its ability to run a national or provincial government efficiently and honestly. 

4. 15 out of the 20 best-run municipalities in SA are DA-led. (Source Good Governance Africa’s Governance Performance Index 2019.) 

5. DA-led Western Cape is SA’s top-performing province for financial stability and governance. (Source: Ratings Afrika’s Municipal Financial Stability Index 2019) 

6. DA-led Western Cape has the lowest broad unemployment: 23% compared with SA average of 37%. (Source: StatsSA QLFS) 

7. DA-led Western Cape achieves the best basic education outcomes – highest retention of children in school until end of matric. Retained 63% of kids in 2018. All other provinces retained under 50%. Highest real matric pass rate. 

8. DA-led Western Cape achieves the best health outcomes. Life expectancy is the highest in the country, has increased by a projected 7 years since DA took over in 2009. And 90% of people live within 30 minutes of a clinic. 

9. DA-led Western Cape success rate of land reform farms is 72%, compared to 10% success rate for SA as a whole.

10. DA-led Midvaal municipality is the only municipality in Gauteng to come in the top-20 best-run municipalities in SA. (Source Good Governance Africa’s Governance Performance Index 2019.) Has achieved 5 consecutive years of clean audits. (Source: Auditor General) 

11. DA-led Western Cape has by far the best track record in spending public money on the public. Achieved 83% clean audits with Gauteng coming a distant second at 52% (Source: Auditor General’s report for 2017/18.) 

12. Cape Town is SA’s best-run metro. (Source: Ratings Afrika’s Municipal Financial Stability Index 2019) 

12 great reasons not to “vote for Cyril”

1. To “vote for Cyril” you must vote ANC. This gives the whole party a mandate, not just Cyril. 

2. A strong result for the ANC will only embolden the crooks in the party. (Ramaphosa only won the ANC presidency because the ANC did so poorly in the 2016 local government elections. Accountability works.)

3. The ANC’s candidate lists prove that Cyril has already lost the battle against the crooks in his party. The second most trusted ANC politician after Cyril is Pravin Gordhan who is only 73 on the national list.

4. “Voting for Cyril” is high-risk because if Cyril is recalled, DD Mabuza becomes president. (Mabuza looted and killed his way to the top and is close to Malema.) 

5.“Voting for Cyril” gets the Trojan Horse thing back to front: Cyril is the mechanism to get the ANC back into power, not the other way around. 

6. South Africa is on its knees after 25 years of one-party dominance by a patronage-driven party that works only to enrich a connected elite. Our democracy urgently needs a strong alternative.

7. A weak ANC mandate coupled with a strong showing for the DA (or some other reform-minded party) can only strengthen Cyril’s so-called reform agenda. 

8. There is little evidence of Cyril’s reform agenda other than his tepid fight against corruption (not a single ANC leader has been charged 14 months into his presidency). So far, he has been forced to support the attack on property rights and the forced investment of pension funds into chronically corrupt, bankrupt state-owned enterprises as well as the nationalisation of the Reserve Bank and of SA’s health system. 

9. Cyril was tasked to fix Eskom in 2015 and today the power utility is in a death spiral and looks set to take our economy down with it. 

10. He is complicit in state capture, having been head of the ANC’s cadre deployment committee during the worst years of state capture. 

11. Cyril’s son (Andile Ramaphosa) has received R2 million in consulting fees from corrupt Bosasa since Cyril became president. This suggests the ANC will continue to be a party that enriches the ANC-connected elite at the expense of the rest. 

12. To tackle SA’s education, energy and unemployment crises, Cyril needs to stare down the unions. This he will never do, as COSATU forms his core support base within the ANC.

By Mmusi Maimane

DA Leader