Letter | Malema shows disregard for people of Nelson Mandela Bay

My grief regarding that last statement takes many forms and the statement is only projecting so much of how Mandela Bay is perceived by the EFF in the following:

• This particular area and its people are just some political laboratory, if not bargaining chips used the same way as labour does with workers.

Why do I say so? The people of Mandela Bay were very resolute that they did not want the ANC regime to reign any longer in the Bay.

They even made Bathabile Dlamini cry, chasing her away, saying that they didn’t talk to drunkards.

We are part of history that cannot be wished away and to this day we suffer in the Bay as a result of the “economically terrorising” reign that underdeveloped the area;

• The EFF municipal election campaign and candidate list in the Bay was littered with washed-up, lumpen proletariats, with an exception of the very few quality candidates who deserved to represent the people. Does this prove my theory? Tshwane and Johannesburg are under the very DA whose policy is against expropriation of land;
• For Malema to say he will instruct is enough to show he has no trust in the elected councillors to discharge their duties as mandated by the people who voted them into council.

Perhaps that should have been kept out of the view of the public to protect the integrity of the councillors.

Despite all of that, what I found baffling is the response or reaction (or whatever you may call) from the DA through councillor Nqaba Bhanga. It is so flat, like dough with no yeast. For a party in power (though in coalition) it has played into the hands of the opposition and is as reactionary as the very ANC it has replaced, instead of focusing on priority deliverables it promised.

The budget indeed has no sustainable economic reforms, in fact it is all just shoddy cosmetic surgery that doesn’t respond to the pressing needs of the people of the Bay.

What is even disappointing for Bhanga is the manner in which he can’t even mention the words, “expropriation of land”, as if he’d lose his position as provincial leader of the DA. He just reduces the issue to politics of the EFF.

Point of correction: the issue of expropriation of land is centuries-old politics of the disenfranchised and the goal is simple, to salvage whatever little that is left of people’s dignity.

To conclude, the EFF must take care not to be complacent to the point of being perceived as arrogant like these other regressive “office revolutionaries”.

It is okay to use these political scarecrows (ANC), but take care not to face them towards the people.