The African National Congress (ANC) is not likely to win the City of Cape Town in the coming local government elections, but will look to do well elsewhere in the Western Cape, its deputy president, Kgalema Motlanthe, said on Wednesday.
Speaking to journalists in Worcester after a visit to Zwelethemba, a township on the outskirts of the Winelands town, he said there were certainly wards in the province the ANC would win outright.
“The City of Cape Town is not there for the taking now, but I think the ANC has it within itself to prepare to win the province.”
Floor-crossing
He said floor-crossing and the breakaway of the Congress of the People ahead of the 2009 national elections had cost the ANC support in about 40 wards, but it was now poised to take them back.
“I think the ANC has a good chance of clawing back some of those wards,” he said.
Earlier, Motlanthe went walkabout in Zwelethemba, listening to residents’ complaints about unemployment and housing delivery problems.
“They also raised challenges about the absence of sanitation, as well as access to potable water,” he said.
Driving to Worcester on Wednesday, six weeks to the day ahead of the May 18 elections, the only election posters to be seen on the town’s lampposts were those of the Democratic Alliance.
Motlanthe is on a whistle-stop tour of communities in the Cape winelands.
Earlier, he was in Paarl, and would speak to farm workers in Stellenbosch later in the day. — Sapa