Cape Town - If their New Year’s resolutions are anything to go by, local politicians all wish to win big in the general elections.
The Cape Argus on Thursday asked a few of the city’s leading political figures to share their plans for next year.
Headline grabber and former city mayor Patricia de Lille will be promoting her Good movement and hopes that voters will bite.
She is up for a fight too.
“I expect dirty (election) campaigns, considering what I have been through the past two years. But I am also ready for it,” said De Lille.
“My big wish for 2019 is that, while I still have enough energy to exercise my responsibility, like all of us must do, to ensure that we build a good country.
“I’ve started the Good movement, that must go on long after I’m not there. People really feel that we need to do something to save our country.
“I’m hoping for good results (at the polls).”
De Lille’s replacement as mayor, Dan Plato, said he wished for “more police on our streets so our communities can enjoy higher levels of safety”.
“I would like the national government to fix train services so that more residents can get to work and access jobs,” said Plato.
“I want to see more people benefit from housing opportunities provided by the city council and I want to see Cape Town continue to be the city of investment, with the lowest unemployment among the big metros in South Africa.”
MEC of Community Safety Alan Winde was very blunt about his big wish for the 2019 elections.
“I definitely want to win,” said the DA’s premier candidate.
“I believe in outcomes and have a track record to prove it.
“That’s why I am standing (for premier).
“I want to be part of a team to take us to the next level.”
Ebrahim Rasool, who was the Western Cape premier when the ANC governed the province a decade ago, said his wish was a given: “We want the ANC to win” nationally in the elections.
Rasool will head the ANC’s provincial election campaign.
But he is torn between promoting two books that he plans to launch and staying in local politics.
“My publishers want me to be on a global book tour rather than being holed up in Cape Town. I need to resolve, in early 2019, what I primarily want to do; play a global role or turn to a national role,” said Rasool. “I think the ANC need to admit that things went wrong and pull the country back from the abyss. We need to say the Jacob Zuma decade has been disastrous.”
JP Smith, the mayoral committee member for safety and security, said his wish was to see the “city disappear from annual statistics that place Cape Town among the top 20 or top 50 most violent cities”.
Smith wants to expand the city’s metro police department and said his department had already secured R71 million to do so.
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