JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – Former president Jacob Zuma’s MK Party found it hard to crack one of the ANC’s strongholds, the Eastern Cape, at the weekend as the party’s first “planned” rally in Gqeberha flopped.
Zuma was expected to address a rally in Motherwell in Nelson Mandela Bay on Saturday, which only a handful of people attended, but did not show up.
He was double-booked to address supporters in Braelyn, East London, nearly 300km from Gqeberha, on the same day.
Zuma said he had decided, at the last minute to attend a funeral of a “dear comrade”, Phumelele Tokwe, in Dikeni instead of going to Gqeberha.
“I want to take this opportunity to apologise for not arriving to discuss issues about our political party. I encountered a problem of a comrade who passed away and we knew each other very well. He was an MK party member. When I said I was not going to the funeral that became a problem,” he said.
Zuma said the distance between East London and Gqeberha was too great, making it difficult for him to be in the two cities on the same day.
“I could not do both. I resorted to send two national executive leaders to Gqeberha to apologise on my behalf because I could not make it. I want to come back when there is adequate time to speak about how we are going to change this country. I won’t spend a day but two days to resolve everything that needs to be solved. I am sorry for not making it.”
Speaking at Tokwe’s funeral Zuma said he was in the province to not only campaign but to resolve internal party leadership issues.
Zuma did address supporters in the God Never Fails (GNF) Auditorium in Braelyn township.
The province is regarded as an ANC stronghold. The governing party received 62.99% of the votes in the last local government elections in 2021, while the DA received 15.25% and the EFF 7.87%.
In the 2019 national and provincial elections, the ANC attained 68.74 % of the votes in the Eastern Cape.
The DA received 15.73 % and the EFF 7.84 % of the votes.
