BY REGINALD KANYANE

ANC national chairperson and National Assembly speaker, Baleka Mbete added her voice to the call for churches to pray for peaceful elections.

Mbate made the call when she met church leaders during her recent visit to Sandfontein village in Rustenburg.

She said the church should pray for fair, honest and smooth-running elections.

“We should ask our people to pray for politics in general. We also urge them to pray for the leadership of the ANC. We want to make sure that we have free and fair elections,” Mbete said.

She added that they were already involved as national leadership to try and resolve some issues raised by disgruntled ANC members. Some of ANC members defected to other political parties after accusing the ruling party of ignoring their councillor candidate nomination lists.

“We are resolving matters that affected various branches. We want to help comrades to understand what went wrong, but everything is fine now. We are now looking forward to August 3.

“Our people must know that we want to continue to deliver better services. We will continue to empower and improve the lives of our people especially in the rural and far-flung areas,” she said.

Some of residents in Rustenburg said they expecting jobs after elections.

“We want the government to diminish poverty, unemployment and inequality. We also expect the educational system to be improved. Tertiary institutions must play a pivotal role in improving the lives of our people through education. Our youth need more bursaries and information,” she said.

Meanwhile 300 ANC members in Morokweng near Vryburg allegedly defected to Democratic Alliance.

They accused ANC of imposing a councillor candidate on them.

However even though Kagisano-Molopo municipality is ANC stronghold, DA councillor candidate, Kabelo Tshukudu said: “We are ready for the elections and we want to topple ANC from this municipality. We have welcomed more than 400 members from ANC.”

EFF councillor candidate in the area, Tshepo Shuping refuted that the youth in Kagisano-Molopo municipality will vote for the DA. He said that the youth will vote for EFF.

“The youth will vote for EFF. There is no use to be free while you continue to live in abject poverty. The youth feel betrayed by the ANC. They took a decision now to be affiliated to EFF,” Shuping said.

However Kagisano-Molopo municipal mayor, Veronica Keketsi said those who defected to DA do not know the policies of ANC.

“Those who defected to DA showed that they do not understand the policies of the ANC. We need to respect their decisions though,” Keketsi said.

-TDN

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