The People Have Spoken!

The LAND Party wants to thank the people of ward 12 for investing their confidence in the LAND Party, a party the people established in 2018 after losing trust in the ANC and its leadership. The People of ward 12 did not forget the pain that was inflicted by the councilors of the ANC on the people of Hermanus in 2018.

The ANC councilors had been failing the community of the Overstrand, selling the last portion of the community land in exchange for favors and kickbacks from the developers. The ANC councilors had been using their positions to rubber stamp punitive policies and by-laws, using their positions to influence the municipality to hire their relatives and their comrades.

Some councilors have been using the municipality's bursaries to send their children to universities while children from poor families do not only not have access to these bursaries but live without basic services. The same applies to tenders. The ANC councilors have been using their positions to influence the municipality to award tenders to ANC aligned businesses while ANC councilors get shares from the individuals who get tenders in the municipality. If you are not aligned with them, they will influence processes and ensure that your company does not get tenders.

In 2018, it was the ANC councilors who agreed in council to separate the white community of Sandbaai from the black African community of Zwelihle by building a big expensive fence without consulting the communities, particularly the community of Zwelihle, where it resulted in the community of Zwelihle pulling down the fence. This incident was used as an excuse to arrest community leader, Gcobani Ndzongana, now the Chief Leader of the LAND Party, in a well-orchestrated plot to silence the people by silencing their leader.

During the revolutionary struggle for land in Hermanus the community decided to take back the last portion of the land belonging to the community that had been sold illegally to a private property developer by the Overstrand Municipality with the help of the ANC and DA councilors. The ANC councilors sided with then Premier Helen Zille and the DA run municipality and insisted, on television, that the army should be called to crush the community labelling the community criminals and terrorists who's leaders deserve to be thrown in jail for fighting for their land.

The LAND Party, born out of the revolutionary struggle for land in Hermanus, expected the people to vote for the party as they had established the party. The people in ward 12 know the work done by the LAND Party in ward 12. The party built a home for a homeless family, whose house was hit by the police vehicle when SAPS failed to rebuild the house or compensate the family in any way. The LAND Party, instead of rebuilding a one-bedroomed RDP house, built a home for the mother and daughter with two sleeping rooms, a sitting room, and a kitchen.

The LAND Party will use ward 12 as a benchmark for good, caring governance and its councilor will never impose projects that are not going to benefit the community or that the community has not agreed to. Our newly elected councilor, Michael Mhana, will represent the people in the Overstrand municipality and, as a LAND Party councillor, will not pursue personal interests at the expense of the people. The LAND Party wants to expand its reach to other communities around the country to ensure that the people govern themselves.

The LAND Party wants public representatives to be slaves of the poor people and do not think they are above the people or more important than the people. The LAND Party wants councilors to be children of the community. As such, they will do whatever needs to be done by the community to assist them to solve their problems. The LAND Party councilors will not be playing politics with the people but councilors who will bring change, services, and always be accessible to the people. The LAND Party knows the challenges of the residents of Ward 12 such as expensive electricity, high rent bills, unemployment, crime, and the lack of areas zoned for small and new businesses.

The LAND Party will also expect its first councilor to advocate for a community vegetable garden and for the municipality to make land available for small-scale farming and assist those who are interested in farming to participate in collective farming. The LAND Party advocates that each community must have its own farm, grow its own food, and have collective farming projects.

The LAND Party thanks everyone who voted yesterday as each vote counts. The LAND Party urges other communities to get rid of the ANC councilors as the ANC has shown that it cannot be entrusted with the huge responsibility of leading people as the governing party is corrupt to the core and has no morals when it comes to carrying out the mandate of the poor people. Theirs is a self-serving, corrupt leadership with a penchant for opulent living like the white monopoly capitalists that control them. Ours is about addressing the plight of the people who are currently suffering in the hands of the corrupt ANC government. The LAND Party warns that if the playing fields are not leveled the poor will eat the rich.

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