Dis mos jou mense (Photo: Ethan Van Diemen)
Freedom Front Plus Western Cape premier candidate Peter Marais entertained the media at the provincial results centre with some vintage quotes following his party’s bumper results.
Marais took but two steps into the hall of the Western Cape IEC Results Operation Centre on Friday and immediately went off into his typical, tangential style of delivering on message.
Waving a folded newspaper, he called the DA voters "scared of the ANC", called his own party "a small dog with a lot of fight in it", and predicted premier-elect Alan Winde would not be able to fulfil most of his promises.
"The people who voted DA were scared of the ANC. You see, the DA's whole attack was 'if you don't vote for us, the ANC and the EFF will come in' so it’s a scare tactic.
"Now you cannot scare people and say 'this is a bad woman' and then tomorrow you want to kiss this woman. So I think they're going to have a problem after this election to deliver on what they promised people because whatever they want they'll have to get from the ANC.
"They already told the people the ANC is bad news so how are they going to get money for housing, how are they going to get more money for the police in the Western Cape how are they going to protect the universities from being anglicised if they made bad enemies by scaring the people saying 'oooh ANC is the bogeyman'?"
'Afrikaans lost at school level'
The Freedom Front Plus was the surprise package this election, almost tripling its support and on course to place fifth overall with close to 2.5% of the national vote.
Marais felt the Freedom Front Plus’ support spiked due to promises "to give minority communities a chance, to protect Afrikaans, to protect cultural groups, to protect the right to a federal system".
"If we cannot put aside party political interests we will never be able to satisfy the interests of the people as a whole. We need partisanship, bipartisanship, whether you are ANC, DA, Freedom Front, we are going to make sure that the people of the Western Cape are properly served."
The DA has retained control over the Western Cape, which will likely see their premier candidate, Alan Winde take control of the province.
On Winde, his party and promises made, Marais raised his concerns with Winde over the DA’s tactics against the ANC during this campaign.
"So the only people who won is the DA in the Western Cape. Afrikaans lost at school level, empowerment of minorities lost, greater powers to the Western Cape lost, better hospital services lost because the DA do not have the power nor the financials to settle the issues and to deliver on the issues they promised the people," he added.
Terriers and Alsatians
On the land question, Marais said that “the redistribution of land is something that you can only agree to if everybody is equally satisfied, not everybody is equally dissatisfied because that's also equality if everyone is equally unhappy".
"We're going to make sure that state land, first of all, state land, we must find a system of making it available to landless people and then there is land that has been standing there undeveloped for decades, bought for prospective purposes. That land we must look at and they must make an offer to the people for that land.
"We can even go so far as to say must be sold to people, who previously couldn't live at beach sides because of the Group Areas Act we couldn't buy the land, blacks and coloureds. How about a discount, DA, you capitalists. How about saying that state land will be given to coloured and black people at 50% discount or at 1994 prices," he goaded and challenged the DA.
"That is a challenge I give to the DA. if you want to really show that you care for minorities and you want to empower people, will you consider selling state land at highly discounted prices?"
Marais clarified, "that is my personal views."
He ended by backing his party’s chances in a scrap.
"I've seen a little bull terrier devour a huge Alsatian so we have the fight in us, we have a plan and we have something that everybody was satisfied with, but the people didn't vote for the best policy. They voted out of fear of the ANC and the EFF. It's a vote based on fear."
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