ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba, denouncing illegal immigrants and “communists” as among South Africa’s main problems, says his party is poised to win Gauteng in the elections.
In an interview with Politics Weekly, a Sunday Times podcast, the DA defector and former Johannesburg mayor said: “Gauteng, I am totally convinced ActionSA is going to lead this province, the ANC whether they like it or not, Panyaza Lesufi is the last ANC premier to govern this province.”
He said he based his confidence on the intense work done over the three and a half years since the party was formed, which had resulted in it qualifying to contest its first national election in all nine provinces.
“We have already covered 52% of the wards throughout the country, we are working very hard — I have nine super premier candidates,” said Mashaba — but he declined to speculate on the outcome of the national ballot.
Economic recovery is one of his key platforms. “You can’t run an economy in an environment of chaos, what you need to do is bring stability so the rule of law is crucial,” he said.
Mashaba’s economic growth plan includes the re-establishment of small township businesses run by South Africans, not migrants, and the scrapping of “draconian labour laws”.
Young children are prostituted to 30 or 40 men per day and paid with drugs; if anyone expects Herman Mashaba to keep quiet, then I am happy to be called any name
— Herman Mashaba
“If you want to start a business in the township, you face the complex labour laws. If you can’t afford to hire labour experts, you are going to get into trouble in the end ... Someone steals, you fire them, they take you to the CCMA [Commission for Conciliation, Mediation & Arbitration], where you have to prove your innocence,” he said.
“We have allowed communists to take away our entrepreneurial spirit, the communists can only make it if they kill the spirit of the country — right now R1-trillion worth of factories sit idle while we sit with unemployment.”
Mashaba, who started his Black Like Me business selling hair products from the boot of his car, said crime and uncontrolled immigration — not big supermarket chains — were to blame for killing local ownership of the township economy.
“Today, when you say to the government our people should be running small business, you are told, ‘No, our people should be running mines,’” said Mashaba.
Small township businesses should not be in the hands of people who “we don’t know how they came into the country or where their money comes from … This country is not looking for drug dealers.”
Mashaba acknowledged that South Africa’s mainstay mining industry had been built on the backs of migrants, and rejected accusations that he is xenophobic.
“It’s deliberate distortion to say I am xenophobic, there are beneficiaries of this [illegal immigrant] criminality. Human trafficking is not far from here, young children are prostituted to 30 or 40 men per day and paid with drugs; if anyone expects Herman Mashaba to keep quiet, then I am happy to be called any name.”
Other ActionSA policies included cuts in business taxes, the declaration of corruption as public enemy No 1, and diluting the president’s power to make such law-enforcement appointments as the head of the National Prosecuting Authority.
Mashaba, whose party is in the multiparty charter group along with the DA, IFP, FF+ and others, said a coalition government would be good for South Africa.
“One-party government is not good for this country, look what the ANC has done here in 30 years; Zanu-PF in Zimbabwe, since 1982 they have destroyed Zimbabwe; Frelimo in Mozambique, look at the damage they have caused.
“Coalitions bring humility and force you to engage, there is no space for political leaders to be arrogant. We as ActionSA can work with whatever party, besides the criminal enterprise that is the ANC and this new MK Party. We can work with the EFF at local government level only because no policy decisions are made there.”
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