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The ANC’s bid to mark the 40-day countdown to the August 3 poll with a massive show of strength at an ANC Youth League (ANCYL) rally in Durban yesterday flopped when the governing party failed to fill even half the city’s secondary stadium, Kings Park.
Zuma spoke to a dwindling crowd as supporters bussed in for the rally started to leave before he and his entourage arrived at the stadium.
The president’s address, which was meant to start at about 11.30am according to organisers, only took place at about 3pm, with a series of entertainers being called in to keep the crowd occupied while attempts were made to fill the stadium.
Marshals battled to prevent hundreds of supporters who had been transported to the event in buses from heading for the nearby beaches as soon as they arrived.
Zuma called on young people to put an end to violent protests and to focus on fighting the “demons of racism and tribalism, which are again rearing their ugly heads”.
Zuma said the current generation “owed a debt” to the 1976 generation, which could only be repaid by the “total emancipation of the people”.
He said it was correct that the ANCYL was focusing on “agitation for economic emancipation” and must “draw strength from the 1976 generation”, while accepting that the country now had a democratically elected government.
The ANC he said, would provide for 20% youth candidates in response to the league’s demand for 40% representation.
“The ANC cares about this country. We are making huge strides towards providing free education at the basic education level,” Zuma said.
ANC KwaZulu-Natal provincial chairperson Sihle Zikalala said the ANC’s service delivery in the province would ensure the party maintained its majority provincially and took control of the 19 municipalities it had co-governed since 2011.
ANC councillors, he said, would no longer be allowed to leave their wards and would be forced to hold ward meetings at least every three months.
Government procurement in the province would also be changed to ensure that 60% of business went to young people and women.
ANCYL president Collen Maine said the youth of South Africa were homeless, landless and jobless, and were still being denied access to higher education.
Despite this, the youth would still vote for the ANC, but demand free higher education, which was their right.
Maine took a swipe at the Treasury, questioning why basic education was free and tertiary education was not.
“Since the league was formed, it has always been calling for free education and we are still making the call. People are getting very impatient with the movement,” Maine said.
The youth, Maine said, also demanded jobs, and wanted government to launch a massive job creation drive.
The “red tape” of experience also had to be done away with, while government needed to do more business with local enterprises rather than with foreign capital.
Government also needed to use the SA Post Office rather than courier services, and set up a state-owned bank in terms with the ANCYL’s resolutions.
“Our deployees get into government and forget about our resolutions,” he said.
On land issues, Maine said people were saying they had “waited too long” for land restitution.
“Rural youth want to be in the economy, but they are struggling because the land they are living on is owned by those who stole it,” Maine said.
Backing up the ANCYL’s demand for 40% representation in public office, Maine said it was time for the “old guard” and the “chiefs and demagogues” to step aside.
“It is time for us to take over the ANC and propel the revolution forward. The country is young and that must be applied in the leadership of our movement,” he said.
“When 2017 comes, we will speak about nothing else but young people,” he said.
“We need a female president, but in the top six of the ANC, there must be young people.
“We thank you and your generation for going into exile and everything else, but we must now take over and lead the country,” Maine said.
“We have the capacity as young people to run these municipalities,” he said. “We will crush anybody who wants to stop us.”
Earlier in the day, Zuma addressed ANCYL volunteers outside the party provincial office in the Durban CBD from an ANC campaign truck parked in the street.
A fired-up Zuma called on the volunteers to spend the weeks before voting day canvassing for the governing party.
Zuma called on them to ensure that they took control of every ward in the province, saying that they needed to show the opposition, who were “always making noise, that the ANC “is not playing”.
Zuma said the volunteers needed to show the ANC at work between now and voting day. Those with cars should budget for extra petrol money for voting day to make sure that their neighbours who could not drive themselves to the voting stations got there.
On voting day, he said, ANC activists should “wake up at 3am”, go and vote quickly and then be prepared to spend the rest of the day ensuring that their family, friends and neighbours made it to the voting stations.
He called on ANC members to campaign peacefully as the party would prosper under peaceful conditions.
