Political parties are poll dancers that deliver promises and then disappear after elections.
This is according AM4C’s Faizel Sayed during a heated IOL elections panel discussion held at the Taj hotel in Cape Town on Tuesday.
IOL has had two election panel discussions in Johannesburg and Durban where political parties disclosed their plans for the country if they were voted in power.
Sayed continued: “We will focus on economic growth, crime and corruption, the returning wealth of land to people of the land.”
The Cape Town panel featured a host of political parties and independent candidates, including ActionSA’s Angela Sobey, Lumka Mquqo from Bosa, Fadiel Adams from NCC, Sankara Bizela from MK, Alan Winde from DA, Brett Herron from GOOD, Axolile Notywala from Rise Mzansi, Anthony Mitchell from IFP, Fairouz Nagia from Al Jama-ah, Nazier Paulsen from EFF, Cameron Dugmore from ANC, Niel de Beer from UIM and Sayed.
Political candidates shared their party’s plans to improve the lives of citizens on a range of topics; from community safety and infrastructure management to job creation.
Winde said the DA vows to increase jobs, bringing down crime, improving the economy and sorting out load shedding.
“Thirty years into our democracy, but there is a lot to do.”
The IFP’s Anthony Mitchell said: “The role we would play is the role we have played in Parliament and that is the voice of reason and pragmatism.
“We are big on environmental issues. Something we want to increase going forward is biodiversity, conservation and climate change. We also want to work on crime an safety.”
Al Jama-ah’s Fairouz Nagia said: On the socio-economic front, we have a long way to go. The courts can only do much. We have laws in place from before apartheid time. We have people that are still disenfranchised. If we want meaningful change, that’s (law) what we need to look at. How to effect meaningful change on a local, provincial and nationals level.“
The UIM’s Neil de Beer vowed the party will hold all parties accountable. “Accountability is to ensure that the promises made is publicly scrutinised. we will hold them to the book by any means possible. Without jobs and without justice, no people can ever be free.”
Rise Mzansi’s Axolile Notywala said the party wants to “build a province that is united in terms of race, class and space.
Notywala added: “No one is safe in the western cape until all of us are safe.”
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