ANC blasts 'Berlin Wall'

There was no rest for ANC bigwigs this Easter weekend as the likes of Trevor Manuel, Fikile Mbalula, Tina Joemat-Pettersson, Marius Fransman and Tony Ehrenreich campaigned tirelessly to win back municipalities in the Western Cape.

While the DA campaigned elsewhere in the country, the ANC focused heavily on Cape Town and the rest of the Western Cape, showing up in churches and roping in jazz musician Jimmy Dludlu.

Yesterday afternoon, Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula visited the Cape Flats and the controversial Hangberg and Imizamo Yethu settlements in Hout Bay. He likened the wall the City of Cape Town built between shack dwellers and wealthier Hout Bay residents to the Berlin Wall or the West Bank barrier wall.

Minutes before Mbalula's visit, Ehrenreich, the ANC mayoral candidate and Cosatu provincial secretary, accused the DA of trying to "sabotage" Cosatu's May Day rally. After the union federation agreed to pay R700000 to hire the Cape Town stadium, he said, the city slapped it with an extra R1-million bill to cover the cordoning off of nearby streets along which members would march, as well as for "law-enforcement, solid-waste cleaning, water, transport and metro police".

In Hangberg, Mbalula and Dludlu trudged door to door in the rain, dropping in on Fagmieda Samaai, who told them how metro policemen had kicked down her door during September's eviction saga. She and family members had been arrested.

"It was the worst day of my life. I was thrown to the ground and dragged by my feet. My daughter wears a veil and it was ripped off her," Samaai told Mbalula, Dludlu and ANC Western Cape secretary Songezo Mjongile.

Mbalula and his entourage heard how Auriol Cloete lost an eye after being hit by a rubber bullet.

Fumed Mbalula: "People are told the Western Cape and Cape Town are the best story of governance and service delivery under the leadership of Helen Zille. But what do we see when we get here? It is squalor, people living in poverty and unemployment."

ANC leaders turned out in force for Easter services, with Mbalula at Khayelitsha's Salvation Church and National Planning Minister Manuel at the Assemblies of God church in Philippi.

Deputy Human Settlements Minister Zoe Kota went to church in the Cape Flats neighbourhood of Mandalay, Agriculture and Fisheries Minister Joemat-Pettersson attended a service in the West Coast town of Saldanah and Mjongile went to church in Langa.

Ehrenreich spoke at a mosque in the southern suburb of Rondebosch after Friday prayers. Although yesterday's campaigning focused on churches, ANC provincial leader Fransman attended the Worcester Easter bazaar and spoke to farmworkers in De Doorns. Ehrenreich attended a soccer tournament in Belhar.

DA spokesman Lindiwe Mazibuko poured scorn on the ANC members attendance of church services: "We engage religious communities all the time. We don't just save it for Easter. The core of our campaign is not in the same vein as the ANC, where they are saying: 'Vote for the ANC, you will get to heaven.' We are talking to voters about our record in government and [about] service delivery issues."

The ANC appears to be pinning its hopes on Ehrenreich securing the votes of the city's working-class coloureds, many of whom belong to Cosatu but have not voted for the ANC in the past.

University of the Western Cape political analyst Keith Gottschalk said: "I assume that the ANC choosing a celebrity man from Cosatu is to minimise the loss of coloured voters who dislike the ANC and in the past voted for the NP and then later, perhaps, the DA and the ID."