The following speech was delivered today by DA Leader, Mmusi Maimane, at the Western Cape launch of the party’s 2019 Election Manifesto.
Fellow South Africans,
It is a great privilege to open this manifesto launch here in the best run province in the country – a province that is DA blue! As leader of the DA, I am immensely proud to stand before this diverse, beautiful bunch of South Africans. To see the power of diversity, and the power of what happens when we come together around shared values and build our towns, cities, provinces, and our nation.
In 1994, we had a dream of One South Africa. A dream where opportunities for learning, earning and owning would be open to all. Regardless of our race or background, we would be able to stand together as one, living free and dignified lives.
Today it is only the Democratic Alliance shares that dream, and are working every day to realise it. We call it One South Africa for All as we believe passionately that we South Africans are better together. And where we govern, this dream is becoming a reality.
Fellow Democrats, it was here in this province where Nelson Mandela walked free from Victor Verster prison and proclaimed a dream of freedom for all. We were all filled with hope and optimism as we put an end to the dark era of Apartheid. And it is here under a DA government that we are realising that dream.
Our constitutional flag reminds of the words of a great servant of nation and of this province, Archbishop Desmond Tutu that we are indeed a rainbow nation. A nation of many races, cultures, languages – a nation rich in diversity.
You see, the unique beauty of diversity is that you don’t have to surrender who are you to “fit in” or to assimilate. I want to affirm this value in both our party and our nation, and to ensure our rights are always be protected.
That is why I reject those who claim that certain South Africans don’t have a place in our nation. If you are Afrikaans, you have rights in our nation. You can learn in Afrikaans and speak the language of your choice. An assault on Afrikaans is an assault on our fundamental constitutional values of diversity, freedom, dignity and equality.
And the same goes for all other languages, too. We have a duty to defend and protect the rights of all if we want to achieve the dream of ’94.
Fellow Democrats,
The truth is our post liberation era of governance for all is modeled here in this very province. While they talk, we do!
For past ten years here in the Western Cape, the DA government has worked hard to ensure the dream of One South Africa for All becomes a reality. We did our best to build a capable, honest state that works for the people and that gets the people working. We’ve had many successes in that time, working with communities, proving that we are better together.
For example, the Western Cape has more households with at least one job than any other province. In SA, 20% of households have no job at all. But here in the Western Cape, it is only 9% of households.
91% of households in this province now have at least one job. It is my dream to see a job in every home, and when you elect us into government here for the next 5 years, we will work hard to ensure that every home in this province has a job.
Fellow democrats, we can do it because the DA knows how to get stuff done.
In the past 10 years, we’ve created 508 000 new jobs in this province, growing employment by 24%, well ahead of Gauteng and KwaZulu Natal. Our expanded unemployment rate of 23% is 14 percentage points lower than the national average of 37%. And we have South Africa’s lowest rural unemployment rate at 15.7%. no matter where you live in this province, there is access to jobs.
We’ve achieved this by creating an environment that attracts investment. And by focusing scarce resources on the sectors of our economy that create the most jobs, such as tourism and agriculture.
Investors prefer to start businesses where the government is honest. When the DA took office 10 years ago, the province achieved zero clean audits. Today, at 83%, the Western Cape received the highest number of clean audits in SA across all government departments and entities last year. Once again, we were well ahead of the next province, Gauteng, with 52% clean audits. Today we are the cleanest government in South Africa.
Clean audits matter, because they mean that every cent of public money is spent on delivering for the people.
Even though policing belongs to the national government, we have done more to fight crime than any other provincial government does. We have done oversight over police stations, have fought hard for more police officers, we work closely with neighbourhood watch groups, and we monitor thousands of cases in courts across the province.
There is so much more we still want and need to do and all the building blocks are in place. We’ve exceeded our housing targets, for example, but there are still over 100 000 housing opportunities in the pipeline for completion by 2022. And there are still many families waiting for houses.
The DA government, working with communities, has made progress here in the Western Cape. However, we still have a very long way to go towards realising our dream of One South Africa for All in this province. But together we have built an honest, capable state here that is well positioned to keep delivering on its constitutional mandates.
Fellow Democrats,
While we’ve achieved all of this, there is still much more to do. Now is not the time for complacency.
This election is going to be incredibly competitive. There will be political parties – some brand new – that will campaign on the idea that if you are black you must vote for this party, and if you are white you must vote for this party.
This is not our mission and we must fight this apartheid-era thinking. We must live out our mission of a post liberation, post racial era in South Africa. That is the only future for our nation, and that futures lies in DA-led governments.
In the next 5 years, the DA government here, under the honest, capable, determined leadership of our premier candidate, Alan Winde, will continue its mission to put a job in every home.
We will continue working to deliver better services – more houses, better schools, better clinics and hospitals, better roads. Because this is what DA governments exist to do.
On 8 May 2019, let’s go the polls and vote DA to continue building One South Africa for All!