When Japhta Lekgetho beat the African National Congress to become the only independent ward councillor in Soweto, many were astounded.
During the 2000 municipal elections, Lekgetho’s Dobsonville community pressed him to stand as an independent councillor and then elected him — a rare feat in Soweto, an ANC stronghold.
But Lekgetho is no ordinary leader; he is revered for caring less about politics than about people.
His modest office at Kopanong Community Centre in Dobsonville is constantly crowded with people seeking help. Today there is a young woman seeking help to pay for her political science studies, a man whose house is flooded with sewage and women seeking advice on title deeds. His two volunteers help them.
A few kilometres away, ANC veterans are meeting to complain about local ANC councillors who do not help them with the smallest of their problems. One by one, they relate how they were kicked out of their houses for rates arrears — until Lekgetho intervened and they were returned to their houses.
ANC veteran James Molatedi (70) says: ”When you don’t get your pension, or get a summons from lawyers, he takes you to the right office. He was the first to ask the council why it was evicting us when most of us are on the council subsidy scheme. Dobsonville is much cleaner because of this guy.”
Wilson Mbele relates that Lekgetho organised school uniforms for his children.
”When families could not bury relatives, he organised the community to help. Before that, we had a councillor we never saw. Most ANC councillors are elected here, but you never see them,” Mbele said.
”To hell with the ANC,” says one angry old woman.
Lekgetho insists he is not against the ANC. But it is clear the territory is, and will remain, his.