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The Congress of South African Trade Unions is calling on all its members and workers in general to register to vote this coming weekend. Registration centres will be open on the 9-10th of April 2016 between 08:00-17:00 and all that people need to bring for registration are their ID documents.

The federation calls on all workers to register and ensure that they exercise their right to choose their local representatives in the upcoming local government. These representatives will serve their communities for the next five years. They will be responsible to ensure that citizens have access to services that impact their lives on a daily basis like; water, electricity, sanitation, decent roads and other amenities.

Workers should exercise this democratic right to choose their councillors and should also ensure that they hold them accountable afterwards. Many people paid the ultimate price to ensure that everyone has a right to choose their representatives.

The 12th National Congress of COSATU and the federation’s recently held Central Executive Committee have agreed that the municipal elections campaign must be an integral part of our 2016 programme of action. The federation calls on its members to campaign and overwhelmingly vote for the ANC in the coming elections. We all need to ensure that the ANC gets a decisive election victory.

The DA has proven itself to be a cesspool, where rabid racists and hard-line segregationists and white supremacists swim and thrive. The DA has colluded with the Free Market Foundation to try and weaken and destroy labour laws. They still insist that the government should not have listened to COSATU on the provident fund reform legislation. They are only looking after the interests of their funders’ and handlers monopoly capital.

They stand for the exploitation of the workers and the working class. The DA will use all tactics and gimmicks to limit or reverse qualitative democratic advances made by the ANC government, defend the ill-gotten white privileges and undermine the ANC’s electoral victories.

We all need to register and vote to defend the revolutionary gains on the 03rd of August 2016.

Issued by COSATU