President Cyril Ramaphosa continued his countrywide election campaign on Thursday in the sandy, impoverished town of Mamre on the Cape’s west coast, bearing his message of the ANC’s renewal and its ability to provide the services that the ruling DA has failed to provide in the past 15 years.
The president also had meetings and engaged with residents of the DA-controlled Cape Town areas of Mfuleni, Khayelitsha and Rylands, holding community meetings and engaging with residents.
The main complaints of Mamre’s mainly coloured residents — the majority population in the Western Cape — who gathered to welcome the president were the lack of housing, disconnections of water when bills are not paid, high electricity costs, gender-based violence and unemployment.
In a concrete demonstration of the ANC’s ability to provide services, Ramaphosa promised that the ANC would build a new house in a matter of weeks for an old lady, Auntie Tuli, who had lived for 40 years in a ramshackle structure which the president said was “terrible”. The ANC would turn her life around and she and others would be able to see that change was possible under the ANC.
Ramaphosa visited four houses to hear the views of residents and engage with the ANC’s local election team and ward candidates.
Addressing the crowd in a mixture of Afrikaans and English, Ramaphosa said he knew there were many problems in Mamre — about 55km outside Cape Town — and that “the DA does not work very well for you”. He urged the community to vote for the ANC on November 1 so that it could bring about change. He said their ward candidate, Fiona Abrahams, was the best — an energetic lady who would work very hard for them.
“The people of Mamre have told me that they are tired of the DA, they want change and the change agent is the ANC,” Ramaphosa said.
Briefing the media earlier on, Ramaphosa said the ANC had been renewing itself and making itself a lot better to deliver.
“We believe we are in a really good, prime position as the ANC to respond to the needs of the people,” he said, adding that the party had the capability.
“The other important thing is that we are fielding some of the best candidates ever. Youthful candidates, female candidates, experienced candidates, candidates who have pledged that they are going to work for the communities of our country and candidates who have pledged that they are going to rid our municipalities of corruption and focus on real delivery.”
Abrahams said in an interview that she believed the tide had changed against the DA. “We are not the leafy suburbs, so services are poor. They are only concerned with a certain class.”
ANC ward election team co-ordinator Charles Titus said the ANC last controlled the ward in 2006 but he was positive it would win it again because people were “really fed up” with the ruling party in Cape Town and sensed that there was a renewal in the ANC, which was dealing with corruption.
He claimed that the last houses built in the area were built by the ANC 20 years ago. Another complaint against the DA, Titus said, was that it had closed down all the youth development centres in nearby Atlantis. The ANC would bring them back.
Titus believed the DA had won Mamre for so many years because of its use of the “swart gevaar” tactic and because of the ANC’s problems nationally.
The ANC’s convener of the interim provincial committee, Lerumo Kalako, said the ANC would bring amenities, services and jobs to the community so they did not have to travel long distances to get them.
ANC Western Cape election manager Cameron Dugmore also believes disillusionment with DA rule is growing in many rural municipalities in the province. He noted that after the 2016 local government elections the ANC only controlled one of the 30 councils in the province, but had since gained control of 10 — either outright on its own or in coalitions — in by-elections.
However, Cape Coloured Congress ward candidate Elvino Schippers, who was also part of the crowd for Ramaphosa’s visit, complained about politicians only visiting the area at election time, making empty promises and lies.
“PeopIe are fed up,” he said, adding that the coloured community had been neglected by both the DA and the ANC.
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