Jaspreet Kindra ‘Use condoms and do not sleep with just anyone!” President Thabo Mbeki is warning the amaQadi community of the dangers of HIV/Aids. The significance of this piece of advice from a man who has been questioning the link between HIV and Aids for about a year eludes the nodding rural community gathered in the iThwelenye community hall in Amatikwe, outside Durban.
The president has taken his cue from the party’s provincial deputy chair, Dr Zweli Mkhize, a medical doctor and the province’s MEC for health, who has just explained at length that the government cannot afford to provide anti-retroviral drugs.
There is silence in the hall, except for the sound of the rain outside which continues to fall on the second day of Mbeki’s campaign trail into the rural areas of KwaZulu-Natal. HIV/Aids is not foremost in the minds of his audience. Demarcation is.
The amaQadi earlier this year were resisting their incorporation into the Durban Metro, for a practical reason. A very poor community that lives on tribal authority trust land, they are concerned they will have to pay rates individually after the incorporation of their region into the metro. Mbeki assures them it is not the case.
So far the campaign has been one long wade through mud and rain to assure the rural community that the sanctity of their traditional leaders remains intact. At the same time Mbeki informs them that the new municipal system provides them with the democratic opportunity to elect their own leaders. He has been enduring the long walks to his car along mud-splattered roads, through lashing winds and incessant drizzle with stoic calmness.
Questions about the party’s strategy to tackle the rural traditional authority areas now incorporated into municipalities are dispatched in a light-hearted fashion by Mbeki. “Ask the province. It is not my decision they ask me to go here, go there,” he says with a laugh, indicating that he is merely following instructions issued by the African National Congress provincial office.
The question is answered, however, as he stops over in Inkatha Freedom Party strongholds outside Ladysmith. At a rally at a school in Ezakheni he urges the community to choose their own representatives, keeping their interests at heart. Then he stops over to attend the funeral of inkhosi Nsikayezwe Sithole in a neighbouring village.
Mbeki’s intensive local government campaign kicked off at White Mountain village near Estcourt on Sunday, where he addressed the influential amaHlubi community, the descendants of one of the first freedom fighters inkhosi Langalibalele in the country. Though described as an official government meeting because the president was handing title deeds to the community, the ANC local government election campaign song blaring out of the loudspeaker as the rain lashes the main function tent was a giveaway.
The blue-blooded Minister of Public Works Stella Sigcau, was also present.
Sigcau also accompanied Mbeki later in the week as he stopped over in the tribal authority area of Vulindlela outside Pietermaritzburg. It is a traditional IFP stronghold which has been incorporated into the Pietermaritzburg municipality and wards in the area are expected to be closely contested
The stopovers in the rural areas alternate with walkabouts in taxi ranks and shopping centres in KwaMashu and Phoenix in Durban and even an address at a Sunday-morning church service in Clermont. “Thabo Mbeki!” calls out a young man, almost ordering Mbeki to stop and shake hands with him outside KwaMashu’s main shopping centre and Mbeki obliges, in-between hugging children and elderly women. But when a man at the taxi rank screams out in despair “No job!”, party officials manoeuvre their president out.
St John’s church in Clermont is full. People clutching ANC flags stand outside in the pouring rain listening to speeches blaring through the loudspeakers. Mbeki urges the congregation to use the same discretion in choosing their councillors as they did in supporting the struggle against apartheid. The pastor, in the meantime, chastises the local Democratic Alliance candidate, who has recently left the ANC fold.
Mbeki raises the question of unemployment at his first public meeting, which is with the amaQadi community. He admits that the government-initiated bid to empower the black community has failed. He tells them of the Umsobomvu Fund, a new job-creating initiative, which is to be launched next year.
He brings up the issue again when addressing Durban’s “intelligentsia” later that evening. He addresses racism, racial polarisation and Zimbabwe, among a host of other issues, including his vision for the Durban Metro.
Tackling the criticism levelled against him for not having dealt with the Zimbabwean crisis with a firm hand, he refers to his repeated statements about upholding the law. He says the reason why the issue is raised often by the opposition in South Africa is because they want a reassurance that the white farms will not be taken away in this country. The question in their minds, he says, is: “If that bantu in Zimbabwe can behave like that it will make the bantu behave in the same way here.”
The day draws to a close. A day later he is back in the province, giving assurance to the rural community and engaging in yet another talk with opinion-makers in Pietermaritzburg. And the rain hasn’t stopped.