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Danny Jordaan’s face beams on a mobile billboard towed from township to township on Thursday during the ANC’s election campaign in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality.
“For a time like this,” reads the tagline on the large black, green and gold panel with an image of Jordaan’s face.
But an expensive campaign is not enough for the ANC to win the metro in the upcoming local government elections.
Therefore, the governing party enlisted its vibrant head of campaigns, Fikile Mbalula, to save it from the embarrassment of losing the only metro named after the party’s former iconic leader, Nelson Mandela.
Jordaan is not a natural campaigner. He struggles to chant “amandla” more than three times.
He is more comfortable raising his hands and waving to the audience regally than whipping them into a frenzy with revolutionary chants.
He is an administrator and often stumbles when he tries to speak more like a politician. Like when he said all bad things start in the Western Cape, including “rain”.
Although he quickly recovered, that was not before both Mbalula and ANC spokesperson Zizi Kodwa briefly stared at each other, seemingly confused, like the rest of the religious leaders and community members in the audience at Daku Hall in KwaZakhele township.
A few of the wards in the Port Elizabeth townships have recently showed hostility towards the ANC, at times forcing leaders to abandon recruitment efforts.
And there has been concern in the party about declining support since it failed to fill the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium during its manifesto launch in April.
Earlier, Mbalula walked into the hall in the middle of Jordaan’s speech to members of SA Democratic Teachers’ Union at the Raymond Mhlaba Sports Centre in Motherwell township.
The teachers cheered and whistled, interrupting Jordaan and throwing him a little off balance. The audience did the same each time the ANC councillor candidates who arrived late made their way to the stage.
Mbalula brings vibrancy and street credibility to Jordaan’s campaign.
When he was the president of the ANC Youth League, Mbalula spearheaded President Jacob Zuma’s spectacular win over Thabo Mbeki in Polokwane in 2007 for the ANC presidency.
His focus is on getting every ANC supporter to go out and vote on August 3 because “white people will do the same and vote for the DA”.
Mbalula says DA mayoral candidate Athol Trollip is an abusive farm owner who does not take care of his farm workers.
DA leader Mmusi Maimane is the “stuurboy” sent out to divide black votes.
His former friend Julius Malema is just “fashionable” and the Economic Freedom Fighters will “fizzle like the Congress of the People”.
He mentions God in every second sentence and drops big words like “perambulate” when he speaks to black professionals.
Mbalula and Jordaan held at least three different meetings on Thursday within the space of six hours in places up to 30km apart.
They told teachers their rights would be under threat under the DA.
Religious leaders were told that the metro would sell land to them for church sites at 1% of the market value.
“This means that if the land costs R400 000, churches will buy it for R4 000,” said Jordaan.
He said households earning less than R3 000 a month would get free water, electricity and sanitation. And for the first time, residents would get title deeds, he said.
Organised business, taxi owners, artists and sports bodies were told that billions would be pumped into the local economy in the next five years and there was money to be made.
Jordaan, who seemed more at home in the discussion with young professionals and businesspeople, said the metro targeted R30 billion in investments.
But Jordaan is not quite in charge and Mbalula will be fondly remembered should the party fare well at the polls.
