Joburg - DA national spokesperson Solly Malatsi says the EFF national shutdown yesterday was a mountain that gave birth to a mouse.
He said his party believes there are two reasons: first, the EFF’s bark is always bigger than its bite.
“We have seen far too many times in the past how the EFF claimed to have national influence, and the truth is they don’t,” said Malatsi.
Second, the DA issued two interdicts against the threats of violence, one by the City of Cape Town and the other by the DA, which prevented the EFF from engaging in illegal behaviour yesterday.
“They knew that the consequences would be too severe to bear,” added Malatsi.
Malatsi said on Saturday, the Gauteng High Court, on the DA’s request, interdicted the EFF from violating the rights of South Africans to work, go to school, and trade by any means of intimidation, violence, or coercion during the party’s planned national shutdown on March 20.
“We believe that this interdict was instrumental in strengthening the arm of South Africa’s law-enforcement bodies and security services to uphold the law during a ‘national shutdown’. The only way to get rid of almost 30 years of ANC mismanagement is not through threats of a ‘shutdown’ or any other form of intimidation or violence,” he said.
Malatsi said the only way was by voting for a party that can really bring an end to three decades of ANC rule that have robbed the country and its people and are directly responsible for the misery of millions of South Africans.
The DA visited the family of Langalam Viki, whose tragic death by drowning in a pit toilet in Mngcqangele village near Queenstown occurred earlier this month.
Party leader John Steenhuisen said, sadly, South Africans had become desensitised to these tragic deaths.
“No child should have to meet this fate in South Africa almost 30 years since the dawn of our democracy,” he said.
Steenhuisen said on Human Rights Day, the DA was launching a two-point plan to eradicate school pit toilets across South Africa to ensure that no family ever endures the tragic indignity suffered by the Viki family.
The DA leader said South Africa could not commemorate Human Rights Day until every child had access to safe and dignified sanitation in schools.
“As South Africans today commemorate our hard-won human rights, we must never lose sight of the basic rights of which millions are still deprived. Until all South Africans have access to three meals a day, until every citizen has access to housing and sanitation, and until all South Africans can live in dignity, we will never truly be free,” he added.
Steenhuisen said the DA would ensure that freedom was afforded to all South Africans, even the 4-year-old child without a voice who simply wishes to use the bathroom safely at school.
The Star