Alan Winde with DA volunteers in Eerste River on Monday. (Tammy Petersen)
In the blue DA bus, Alan Winde has criss-crossed the Western Cape, getting by on only a few hours of sleep in his bid to get the people of the province to back him as premier.
"Being on the road has been good, but it’s after the election that the real work starts," he said Monday, on the second of his three-day final push which will see him visit 30 communities in three days.
Since September, Winde has gone from door to door and street to street campaigning from the Cape Flats to the leafier suburbs and the Karoo. While he would not divulge the percentage of support he was targeting, a win would be a win, Winde told News24.
"We need the majority if we want to carry on with the work we’ve been busy with. That’s why it’s so critical to make sure that every voter comes out," he said.
"The one good thing about politics and this renewal process is that you get out to see what you’ve done. On the road, I've got to see new things that were built, from schools to hospitals.
"You see the great, but also that there’s so much left to be done."
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In the past eight months, more than 5 million pamphlets have been distributed and 407 000 posters put up as part of Winde’s campaign.
He has had about 2 million voter interactions, Winde said, as supporters approached him asking for a t-shirt outside the bus parked at a shopping centre in Eerste River.
If elected as Helen Zille’s successor, he plans to place special focus on jobs to grow the economy, improved policing, a more reliable railway system, an accountable education system and quality healthcare.
The DA has in the last decade built a formidable track record, he said.
"We are rated as the best run province in SA. And we have a really good plan going forward," said Winde.
Crime is a major challenge in his plans for the Western Cape, he said.
"But we have to make this place safer. If we can’t, we can't fix education or health. We can't get jobs to grow," he said.
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"At the end of the day, we need more people to come out of poverty into the middle class, and so job creation is going to be the big thing."
Former DA leader Tony Leon joined Winde in his final leg of campaigning.
"I have known and worked with Alan for the past 20 years. He is a person of high integrity, competence and deep dedication to public office. He will serve as an exemplary premier of our province," said Leon.
"In 2006, when I was leader of the DA, we won the City of Cape Town. Helen Zille and her team built a new administration on the rotten foundations bequeathed to her by ANC predecessors.
“For the past 10 years, she and her team have established the Western Cape as the best governed, by far, province in South Africa." He urged voters to not "allow these gains and this excellence to be reversed".
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