Johannesburg- President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Eastern Cape charm offensive was marred by the outpouring of rain and protests by his party members as political parties descended on the province to woo voters ahead of the November 1 elections.
Ramaphosa made a brief appearance at an outdoor venue where he was scheduled to brief the party supporters at NU 14 in Mdantsane.
Rain started pouring heavily before he could address ANC supporters.
Ramaphosa only greeted and urged those who came to vote for the ANC. Addressing the media at NU 14 library, Ramaphosa admitt ed the party’s selection of candidates was not smooth, but said it would be addressed aft er the elections.
“ We had missteps and errors here and there. In Buff alo City, in particular, the missteps have not been many, it was one of the best performers in terms of submitting their candidates in time. We have also said that all those missteps, all those errors are going to be rectified after the elections,” he said.
Meanwhi le, police in Mdantsane spent a big part of the day trying to control a group of disgruntled ANC branches that were protesting outside the NU 14 outdoor venue where Ramaphosa was due to address party supporters.
The branches claimed that guidelines of candidate selection processes were not followed and they were taking their grievances to the party leader after being neglected by the ANC provincial leadership. They accused the ANC leadership of the Eastern Cape and the party leadership in WB Rubusana (Buffalo City) of endorsing candidates who have lost both the branch general meetings (BGM) and the community meetings.
Cynthia Ntamebomvu said ward 12 candidate Andile Petani did not win the BGM and the community meeting, which was meant to select the most popular candidate in the ward was held late at night in the absence of the majority of people in the ward.
“We heard that the meeting was att ended by 14-year-olds who are not voting in the elections,” she said. Ward 17 protesters said they want the outgoing ward councillor, Phumla Yenani, to continue and claimed that the incoming ward candidate Veliswa Mrwebi was not the choice of the majority in the ward. Ward 7 protesters claimed that they were not allowed in the BGM and the public meeting was never called.”
Xoliswa Chophiso from ward 7 said: “We are here to call on President Ramaphosa to resolve the branch issues or else we won’t vote .”
The Eastern Cape was a hive of political activities, with EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu also on the campaign trail at Amothole and Buff alo City. In Mthatha, the United Democratic Movement launched its local government elections manifesto, where it is targeting control of Nelson Mandela Bay.
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