By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
ActionSA presidential candidate Herman Mashaba returned to his hometown in Hammanskraal to launch his party’s 2024 election campaign.
Hundreds of party supporters gathered at the Ga-Ramotse soccer field, north of Pretoria, on Saturday.
Mashaba said he started as a weed-smoking street hustler before too many brushes with law enforcement forced him to move to Johannesburg and establish his successful hair product company, Black Like Me.
And today, the novice politician returns to a different Hammanskraal than the one that shaped him as a successful businessman – one plagued with poverty and poisoned tap water.
Action SA will for the first time contest the national elections – in what has been described as the country’s most historic and hotly contested polls since the dawn of democracy.
Mashaba is joined by Action SA’s national leadership, as well as all nine provincial leaders.
Delivering his message of support, Gauteng chairperson Funzi Ngobeni says they have already begun challenging the governing ANC in the province under Premier Panyaza Lesufi.
“We’re sending these warning shots to him [Lesufi] and his cadres to let them know that their time is up. We’ve already started taking action against some of his PR stunts like Nasi’spani and the crime wardens. He’s all these as ANC campaign tools.”
He’s called on residents who’s applications were rejected for the Nasi’spani jobs campaign to join their legal battle, in which they are seeking to get access to all the documents related to the campaign.
Ngobeni says they will be appealing an earlier court ruling which did not grant them that.
“It’s not only our battle, it’s their battle as well. We ask them to sign a petition that we will then attach to the appeal so that they can see that it’s not only us who are asking for transparency.”
He adds that the party’s already approached the Special Investigations Unit to probe the controversial crime warden programme.
ActionSA has focused its 2024 election campaign on taking a tough stance on crime, and bringing back the rule of law in the country.