Cape Town shacks shock Zuma

President Jacob Zuma told shack dwellers near Cape Town he was shocked to see the conditions in which Democratic Alliance rule had left them.

"When the DA speaks in Parliament they say things have improved," Zuma told a crowd of a few hundred people in Imizamo Yethu in Hout Bay.

"I came to see for myself, and I have been shocked to see my people live in these conditions."

The president went from door to door, talking to residents at length, and repeated the exercise in the nearby fishing community of Hangklip.

Media were crowded out of homes he visited by a massive security contingent.

But staff reported that Zuma commiserated with neighbours of a woman who died days ago when her dwelling caught fire. He asked another why the DA was in power there.

She retorted that she had voted for the ANC, and invited him to check on that.

An unemployed, but qualified nanny, Pumla, said she planned to vote for the ANC next year, and had come to see Zuma because his visit had brought some hope.

"It's just promises probably, but even if the promise is empty you still want that hope," she said.

ANC spokesman Keith Khoza said the visit was part of the president's grassroots campaign for the 2014 elections, now 10 months away.