The EFF is adamant that the national shutdown will yield the desired results.
PRETORIA – The EFF is adamant that the national shutdown will yield the desired results.
This comes as its supporters took to the streets on Monday morning for its organised national shutdown, which has seen some major intersections and roads across the country blocked with burning tyres and rocks.
EFF spokesperson Sinawo Tambo said party members and some citizens had taken to the streets all around the country to ensure that President Cyril Ramaphosa resigns.
“We are making sure that the people of South Africa register their voices about the massive unemployment, gender-based violence and high rate of crime,” he said.
Tambo said the deployment of law enforcement agencies to handle the shutdown was the biggest since the state of emergency in the 1980s.
“We have never seen so much police presence in South Africa, which shows that the state is capable of protecting our people, they are capable of protecting a president who has been implicated in money laundering.”
He mentioned that the EFF was proud of the youth for coming out in numbers to support the shutdown.
The red berets called on its members and ordinary South Africans to join the march in numbers without fear and intimidation from the government and the police.
The national chairperson of the African Radical Economy Transformation Alliance (Areta), Carl Niehaus, said they would also participate in the EFF-led national shutdown.
Niehaus also called for Ramaphosa to step down, claiming that he and his government had dismally failed South Africans.
The EFF also rejected the deployment of the SANDF across the country before the shutdown.
“The dictator Cyril Ramaphosa has deployed 3,474 members of the SANDF to suppress peaceful protests against his failed presidency and crush the calls for his resignation.
“This act demonstrates the bloodthirsty nature of the current government and the intolerance of the ruling party to dissent and opposition.
“South Africa has degenerated into a military state, and the deployment of the army to suppress the Constitutional Right to protest, means we have returned to the dark days of apartheid,” it said.
