AfriqueCAN: THE leader of South Africa’s biggest opposition party urged voters to back his party in Wednesday’s election to avoid a “doomsday” scenario of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) forming a coalition with radical parties www.AfriqueCAN.com
Democratic Alliance – DA, leader John Steenhuisen said the election would go down in history as the most consequential day for South Africa since the dawn of democracy in 1994.
Steenhuisen, whose party won the second-largest share of the vote in the last national and provincial elections in May 2019, urged supporters to use their pens to close the ANC chapter and write a new one when they cast their vote.
“Unlike all other parties in this election, the DA doesn’t make promises about what we will do one day. We show you the evidence of what we are already doing today,” Steenhuisen told supporters at a cricket stadium in Benoni, east of Johannesburg.
Political parties are holding rallies on the final weekend before the national and provincial elections on May 29, in which polls expect the ANC to lose its parliamentary majority for the first time since liberation leader Nelson Mandela was voted into power in 1994 at the end of apartheid.
The pro-business DA runs the provincial government of Western Cape, home to the popular tourist city of Cape Town.
Steenhuisen said there would be a dire outcome if the election resulted in a coalition between the ANC, the ultra-left Economic Freedom Fighters and the new uMkhonto WeSizwe, aligned with former president Jacob Zuma.
“The NHI (National Health Insurance Bill) will be implemented, property will be expropriated without compensation, corruption will engulf us, and the economy will collapse,” he said. “It will be Doomsday for South Africa.”