Former Free State Premier and former ANC secretary-general, Ace Magashule has made the bold claim that the province of Free State is already in the bag for his new political party.
Magashule and his supporters, which included General Berning Ntlemeza, the former head of Hawks, launched the African Congress for Transformation (Act) on Wednesday in Soweto with the promise that they will have a presence in all the country’s nine provinces.
Magashule was bold enough to claim that the Free State province was already won, since he knew it like the back of his hand.
That was when the media asked him where his party would focus ahead of next year’s provincial and national elections.
"All provinces, Free State is gone, it is in the bag," Magashule boldly claimed, adding that he has an advantage in Gauteng as he spends most of his time there.
At the same unveiling, Magashule also denied that at some point he wanted to join the EFF, saying they only had talks.
Magashule said they are all interim leaders, and they will work with like-minded formations like Areta (African Radical Economic Transformation Alliance), which is led by his right-hand men, Carl Niehaus and Nkosentsha Shezi.
“Areta, we agreed that it should be a non-profit organisation, but it took the route that they took, and we have agreed with comrade Carl (Niehaus) and comrade (Nkosentsha) Shezi that we will all work together because all of us represent the aspirations of South Africans," he said about Areta.
Taking questions from the large media contingent that came to hear him map his new political path, Magashule said the ongoing asbestos corruption case against him will have no bearing on his newly chosen political path.
He said the case against him had been manufactured.
"All these manufactured lies, manufactured and fabricated cases, you will see, and I so wish that … case which has been postponed until April gets in so that I am in the dock.
"You will then hear who is corrupt and who is not corrupt," he said regarding the case.
On the rumoured move to join the EFF in recent months, Magashule said that was never his intention, even though they had talks.
"I have never changed my mind; I have never wanted to go to EFF. We have been having engagements with EFF because they are one progressive organisation, which I believe is also representing the aspirations of our people.
"And I think we engaged several times, and we are still engaging, and we will work together," he said.
Asked about using the same language that is used by the ANC, Magashule said the terminology used does not belong to the ANC, but to the struggle to liberate Africans.
Still on the ANC, he said the party is good, but the challenge that it is facing is that it has "leaders who are selling it on a silver platter“.
He added that the ANC has good leaders, and he will continue to work with them and said his party will implement most of the policies the ANC has failed to implement.
"We need to nationalise; if you say we are copying from the ANC, it is because the ANC is not nationalising; the ANC is not creating State banks.
"So, we are going to act, because our name is act, so we are going to implement; we are not going to talk," he said.
Magashule also denied that he was part of the African Transformation Movement (ATM), a party that was allegedly formed to destabilise the ANC.
sihle.mavuso@inl.co.za
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