Zimpapers Logo

JOHANNESBURG. — The party that wins the elections has a responsibility to live up to people’s expectations, former president Thabo Mbeki says.

Mbeki cast his vote at the Holy Family College in Killarney yesterday afternoon.

The party that wins the elections has a responsibility to live up to people’s expectations, former president Thabo Mbeki says.

A group of women who were waiting for him to arrive ululated as he made his way.

As he walked to the voting station, accompanied by Gauteng MEC Panyaza Lesufi, he greeted reporters and asked if they had voted.

Former President Thabo Mbeki says it would have been dishonest of him to campaign for the ANC while it was “veering off course”. Mbeki was speaking at the Rand Easter Show on Tuesday afternoon as part of the ruling party’s election campaign.

Speaking to the reporters after voting, Mbeki said he hoped voters would apply their minds to what the different parties represent, given the long list of parties contesting.

Mbeki also said the party that is elected to govern should “deliver”.

The former president said his message to the incoming president was that people were concerned about poverty, unemployment and inequality.

“I think whichever party gets elected nationally and provincially, those parties have a very heavy responsibility practically, to live up to the expectations of the people…once we elect whichever party, there is a lot that we expect of those parties and they really have to deliver because all of these things about poverty and so on are not inconsequential issues,” he said.

“I mean, you see levels of poverty and you see really poor people and you visit poor people and really you want to cry. So I think the obligations on the parties we elect are very heavy,” Mbeki added. — Times Live.