Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) Leader Julius Malema has told the Coloured community in Gauteng that his party is for all South Africans. He was speaking during his party’s manifesto Town Hall meetings at Eldorado Park, south of Johannesburg.
Malema says people of all races will have equal opportunities under the EFF administration. With elections just over 40 days away, political campaigning is now focused on minority groups. And the battle for the vote of the Coloured and Indian communities of the Muslim faith is raging on.
Last Thursday, ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa celebrated the end of Ramadan with the Muslim community of Laudium outside Pretoria. At the weekend, EFF Leader Julius Malema met with the Muslim community of Lenasia. And now he is in Eldorado Park.
“I am here to say to you this is my home. I belong to the Coloured community, they belong to me, we are one thing and nothing can separate us. Your problems are my problems. I don’t like this thing that every time we think of drugs, we think of Coloured communities, we need to destroy that when we speak of gangsters, we think of Coloureds, when we speak of unemployment and alcohol Coloured community no, we need to fight all those ills in the Coloured communities and restore your dignity,”
Video: 2024 Elections – EFF takes campaign trail to Eldorado Park
And it was time for the community which claims to have been forgotten by the democratic dispensation, to vent out its anger.
“I cannot understand CIC why the employment equity passed Parliament without any party objecting because that is racial. It says only five percent of the so-called Coloured people can work in a factory. how is that possible? CIC there are racist policies that Coloured people are suffering from like we call it employment equity we call it affirmative action can and we call it BEE. Can we stop that racial policy and treat each other equally in this country,” says a Coloured community member.
The EFF leader promised equal opportunities for all under his administration if his party gets elected to power.
“So, when you go to a department, there must be a Coloured person, there must be an Indian person, there must be a white person and there must be an African. How SA looks like that’s how a place of employment must look. For as long as this place of employment has got no Coloureds, it’s not a true reflection of SA is a distortion of SA and we should not put a quota,” says Malema.
Currently, few communities are regarded as minorities in South Africa. They include the Greek, Cypriot, Italian and Portuguese communities, among others.
Video: 2024 Elections – EFF leader Julius Malema takes election campaign to Eldorado Park, Johannesburg
Malema says the party will prioritise free education in the schooling system if elected to government. Malema says former President Nelson Mandela should have prioritized free education instead of RDP houses while he was the leader of the country.
“Ntate Mandela shouldn’t have given us RDP houses in 1994. He should’ve given us free education; we were going to build our own houses because when you look at educated people and you look at the percentage of unemployment amongst uneducated people, it’s very low. Which means education and employment and empowerment are the same WhatsApp group, they go together. Poverty can be defeated by education; drugs can be defeated by education.”
