ANC RESPONSE TO VOTE BUYING ALLEGATIONS IN TLOKWE

Helen Zille today issued a statement that the African National Congress is buying votes in Tlokwe. This statement is an insult to our people and undermines the poverty that they are confronted by on a daily basis. We do understand though that her attitude is informed by her privileged upbringing and her lack of understanding of the real challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality facing our people.

This is because these challenges simply do not affect Zille or Chris Hattingh, who has been saying the same things for some time. Given this, we are therefore not surprised that serious problems of malnutrition amongst black people have been uncovered in various areas in the Western Cape including Khayelitsha, Athlone and Oudtshoorn amongst others.

The African National Congress through the Minister of Social Development, Comrade Bathabile Dlamini, has already responded to this issue when it was raised as a question in Parliament. The Department of Social Development does not have food parcel programmes. It runs Poverty Alleviation and Social Distress Relief Programmes that seek to respond to realities of poverty facing many South Africans in the 1300 most impoverished wards in the country.

In the North West, the Department intensified its programme after horrific reports of two children in Verdwaal who died a tragic death from hunger. These interventions also followed the Department's own findings  that the North West Province is placed second in the country on issues of lack of  food security. These programmes of government cannot and will not stop because there are by-elections in a certain area. At any rate, poverty does not pause because there are by-elections. 

What the ANC finds particularly disturbing is the view by Helen Zille that black people are so cheap politically that their votes can be bought with food. This assertion by Zille is indicative of the lack of esteem with which she and her DA holds our people. To them, black people are only good enough to vote for her but that they do not possess the requisite mental capacity to make a decision who they must vote for unless they have been bought with food. We can only conclude that these remarks by the DA are the last kicks of a dying horse since they are now confronting the very real reality that they and their side-kicks are losing these by-elections.

In her statement Helen Zille also makes the claim that ANC members assaulted a DA supporter. This matter had not been reported to us or the Party Liaison Committee of the Independent Electoral Commission at the time we were first made aware of it through her statement. We appreciate that the matter has been reported to the police and hope that the police will find and apprehend the culprits so that they may be dealt with within the ambit of our laws.

We again want to reiterate that the African National Congress is a signatory to the IEC Code of Conduct and would thus never condone any acts of violence or intimidation by any of our members or supporters. Helen Zille must be assured that the 2014 General Elections are under no threat of violence from the African National Congress. Our track record speaks for itself.

Statement issued by Jackson Mthembu, ANC national spokesperson, September 18 2013

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