Ride horses, Gwede tells SUV critics
The ANC chairperson is on the campaign trail in the far north of Kwazulu-natal in a bid to save the party’s narrow majority in the province
ANC national chairperson Gwede Mantashe has defended party leaders who have been criticised for travelling in luxury vehicles to campaign in poor communities.
Mantashe was responding to questions from the Mail & Guardian about the optics of ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula arriving in a G63 Mercedes — worth about R4 million — for a door-to-door campaign in Inanda township in Kwazulu-natal where some residents live in abject poverty.
Despite Mbalula facing widespread criticism, Mantashe suggested it was common among party leaders to travel in such vehicles, adding that those who took issue with it should lead by example and arrive for campaigns on horses.
“Other political leaders are driving fancy cars as well. Why don’t they ride horses? They should be on horseback if they complain about that,” Mantashe said.
“If the car you have is a Mercedes, what must you do? Should you stay away? It’s not insensitive. When people begin to take you up on a car, it’s not the car. It’s the quality of service they get.”
The opulent lifestyles of ANC leaders has come under scrutiny during past campaign seasons. This time around Build One South Africa leader Mmusi Maimane took to social media to lambast Mbalula, posting a video of the ANC leader arriving in Inanda.
The people of Inanda have no water, no jobs and “the community is suffering but Mbalula and the ANC decide that they are going to show off their top range G Wagon Mercs while asking poor and hungry South Africans for votes. Nasty work,” Maimane said.
During Mantashe’s visit in the north of Kwazulu-natal, a shortage of clean drinking water was among the key issues raised by disgruntled residents.
One resident, Mkhulu Dangazela, told the M&G that people had been living without tap water for three years and had to fork out R25 000 for a borehole. “It’s been so many years not drinking tap water. There’s no water. We had to dig a borehole. There’s many residents who have resorted to building boreholes,” he said. “There is a white person from overseas who came to build boreholes for those who can’t afford to build their own. They have to push wheelbarrows to go and get the water.”
The ANC has deployed its 80-member national executive committee to Kwazulu-natal in the hope of preventing its political foes from flattening its narrow majority in the province come election day. The party has identified Kwazulu-natal and Gauteng as the key election battlegrounds.
The two provinces account for 44% of the country’s 28 million registered voters. According to the Electoral Commission of South Africa, Gauteng has 6.5 million voters and Kwazulu-natal has 5.7 million.
The ANC could receive only 40.2% of the votes, according to an Ipsos poll released last week.
But Mantashe insisted that the party would not entertain any talks about coalitions.
“I am not working for that. I am working and campaigning for an outright majority,” he said.
“A coalition is a consequence and you deal with the consequence when it happens. We are campaigning because we want to defy the polls. I’m out in the backyards of Zululand. I am campaigning and we want to get votes.”
Mantashe’s stop in umhlabuyalingana municipality ran into some hiccups, with clashes erupting between supporters of ANC, Jacob Zuma’s umkhonto wesizwe (MK) party and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP).
IFP supporters descended on the Mbazwana Arts Centre on Wednesday where Mantashe was addressing ANC supporters, but were denied entry, leading to a prolonged altercation that was halted by the police.
Some IFP members told the M&G that it was within their right to be in the building and listen to Mantashe because he is also a government minister.
“It’s a community hall so we came wearing our T-shirts just like people of the ANC were wearing their T-shirts. They told us it’s an ANC meeting but we are a community here, we know each other,” one said.
Overall, despite the umhlabuyalingana region being under the leadership of the IFP in coalition with smaller parties, the residents welcomed the ANC this week, with many saying they would vote for the party on 29 May.
The posters of several political parties including the ANC, IFP, Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and Actionsa were plastered on street lights.
The town of Manguzi appeared to have been given a facelift, including an upgraded road, but the gravel roads in Kwahangaza — where Mantashe made a stop — was riddled with potholes and there was little sign of development.
Sakhile Mthembu, who lives in
Manguzi, said residents had last seen water from their taps five years ago, when a company contracted to fix the crisis bailed out.
Mthembu was also unhappy that a project announced last October by the MEC for transport, community safety and liaison, Sipho Hlomuka, to help unemployed people in the province get drivers licences for free had disappeared into thin air.
Hlomuka had promised that the Thuthuka Driving Skill Programme would assist more than 3 000 people across all age groups to get licences “because we know that when people have licences, they stand a better chance of being employed across all sectors”.
“This project assisted a lot because those who did not make it in school had an opportunity to get a licence but I don’t know what happened … I think if they can bring that back, things would be better,” Mthembu said, adding that he would vote for the ANC despite the disappointments.
“They can’t do everything but the small things they keep doing are what we appreciate.”
Jabulani Qwabe, a resident of Kwahangaza, said despite the many problems and hardships, people had historical ties to the ANC that were not easy to relinquish.
“There is umkhonto wesizwe [party], IFP, but we love the ANC. The problem that we have in the ANC is that once they are elected, they don’t help us with anything,” Qwabe said.
During one of his campaign stops, Mantashe told residents that no other government would distribute free condoms, pay child support grants, and put children from poor families through university the way the ANC had done.
“The day the child is born, the ANC gives the child a child support grant. The ANC knows that [fathers] run away after the child is born, so the ANC then provides a child support grant. When you get to university … you find NSFAS [National Student Financial Aid Scheme] and you study for free,” he said.
Mantashe said he was not oblivious to the governing party’s shortcomings, citing the energy crisis as an example, but pleaded with people to give the ANC another chance, noting that during apartheid, many areas did not have electricity to start with.
“The fact is that before the ANC government took over, we were on permanent load-shedding. The ANC then took a resolution to give our people electricity and now we have it,” he said, adding that the party was also trying to resolve the unemployment crisis.
“Priority number one of the ANC manifesto is jobs, but in the ANC we know jobs will not be created by the government, but it will be created by a growing economy.”