Pretoria - The fledging political party ActionSA will not challenge the call to to postpone the municipal elections as recommended by former Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke.
This was pronounced yesterday by ActionSA's national chairperson Michael Beaumont during the announcement of the party's mayoral candidates for the Tshwane, Joburg and Ekurhuleni.
The stance by the party was made a day after Justice Moseneke released a report following an inquiry into whether the current environment beset by Covid-19 would be conducive for the country to host free and fair elections.
In releasing the report, Justice Moseneke recommended that the elections be postponed to February 2022. Prior to the inquiry, the IEC had already announced that it was ready to conduct the local government elections on October 27 this year.
Asked whether ActionSA intended to take legal action against the report, Beaumont said: "We don't take issue with the Justice Moseneke report."
He said the party took issue with the fact that "the South Africans’ rights to vote and to life has to be a choice between the two things".
"Actually, our Constitution should guarantee both, and I think this is a function of two things; one it is a state that has under-vaccinated our population in such a manner that we could not hold elections at the end of October, having reached that critical point of community immunity," he said.
Secondly, he cited that "the IEC has not communicated and led in the process of communicating measures that will give South Africans confidence that they could exercise their right to vote without contracting the virus".
ActionSA announced former Joburg mayor Herman Mashaba as their candidate for that metro after he bagged 94% of the votes cast during the primary candidate election system.
At least 22 000 ballots were cast for the nine mayoral candidates who raised their hands for the positions, according to the political party.
Former Tshwane utility services MMC and acting mayor Abel Tau and Ekurhuleni's Letlhogonolo Moseki were named mayoral candidates for their respective metros, after securing 79% and 58% of the votes, respectively.
Mashaba used the opportunity to take stock of his achievements during his tenure as the mayor of Joburg, stating that he had the unfinished business of revitalising that City.
According to him, the DA multi-party government he led in Joburg resurfaced almost 1 000km of roads and tarred 88km of gravel roads, replaced almost 200km of water pipes and over 125 km of sewer pipes reducing bursts and blockages, among many achievements.
"As I kick-start my mayoral campaign, I am deeply committed to getting the ANC voted out of power and getting service delivery in Johannesburg back on track,” he said.
Tau said he was ready to engage with all residents about service delivery, saying since 2016 there has not been a stable municipal administration in Tshwane.
"Since 2016, residents have not enjoyed stable and effective governance. The DA has parachuted two mayors into the city, both of whom were mired in scandals and an inability to deliver services.
“The ANC was no better - too busy with petty politicking tactics instead of ensuring service delivery. Once in office, ActionSA will work to rebuild residents' faith in local government by working to get the basics of service delivery right in every one of our communities,” he said.
Moseki, on the other hand, said he would prioritise "creating an environment for jobs within the City by cutting red tape and making it easier to open manufacturing businesses within the City".
He would also roll out entrepreneurship and opportunity centres targeting young people and providing business support to residents.
Pretoria News