DA candidate for Ward 3 Marcelle Booysen has a very good idea of what she will need to work for if she's elected, after her experience in a recent door-to-door campaign.
DA candidate for Ward 3 Marcelle Booysen has a very good idea of what she will need to work for if she's elected, after her experience in a recent door-to-door campaign.
Walking the dusty streets of Phaphamani, Zolani and Xolani to introduce herself to her potential constituency, Booysen knocked on the door of a house to ask for water. The resident pointed down the road to a communal tap some distance away. "We have no water here," Booysen was told.
Booysen said her visit to the townships had gone surprisingly well and the residents had spoken freely open about their problems. "People are fed up," Booysen said. "Nothing has been delivered – not even the basic things." But not all the DA hopefuls had such a smooth reception. "I started working in the DA office in 1998. Anybody who goes to that office wearing any T-shirt can get help," said DA PR Councillor Xolani Madyo, who hopes to represent Ward 12 after the 18 May election.
Perhaps the subject of T-shirts was prompted by the fact that his meeting with Hlalani residents was disrupted by a raucous group wearing ANC T-shirts. Hlalani, in Ward 12, is an ANC-dominated area. This hasn't deterred Madyo, who has spent the past two weeks campaigning there. On Sunday afternoon, Madyo invited residents to a public meeting, where he asked for their trust and a chance to help them even more than he had in the past.
Madyo, also a Hlalani resident, explained that the DA office, where "anybody", wearing "any T-shirt" could get help, was also where Member of Parliament Annette Lovemore was based. Madyo pointed to the efficient governance of the City of Cape Town, under the DA, and said the party would apply the same governance principles to Makana. "We just want to ask you for a chance," he said.
Questions from residents ranged from how to join the DA, to service delivery issues – mainly around housing. One resident complained about his 18m² RDP house and asked when he would get a proper one. "I don't have a house. All I have is a potjie to live in," he said – the Afrikaans word for a three-legged cast iron pot is also common township slang for a very small house.
One resident asked, pointedly, "If we make you our ward councillor, what will you do for us?" Madyo acknowledged that the residents were still not getting the infrastructure and services they had been promised and said that, under the DA, there would be no such delay.
Halfway through the gathering, a handful of ANC members at the meeting shouted, "Viva ANC, Viva!", while from a house across the road came loud music. A few of the people dancing to the music there donned ANC T-shirts. But Madyo continued undeterred, and the residents appeared to appreciate the chance to express their concerns.
