SOWETO, GAUTENG — Cyril Ramaphosa has intensified the ANC local government elections campaign in Soweto, engaging directly with voters across key Johannesburg wards as the party navigates heightened public scrutiny. The strategic electoral push follows a highly publicized and controversial confrontation involving Johannesburg Executive Mayor Dada Morero, placing the ruling party’s historic strongholds under the microscope just weeks before the November 4 polls.
During his grassroots engagements in areas including Dobsonville, Jabulani, and Tshepisong, the President faced direct questions regarding whether his deployment to the region was a calculated damage-control effort. The inquiry stemmed from a recent imbizo in Tshepisong, where Morero swore at a resident who had heckled him and called him a “criminal.” The Mayor has since apologized for the profanity.
Ramaphosa dismissed the notion that his campaign schedule was altered in response to the incident, stating that the stop was not a reactionary measure. While acknowledging that “mishaps” are an unfortunate reality of any election season, he confirmed that Morero has been brought to account and that the party is handling the matter internally.
The stakes for the upcoming local government elections are exceptionally high. Soweto, once an impenetrable fortress for the ANC, is now a fiercely contested battleground. Recognizing this shift, Ramaphosa pivoted the focus toward deep-seated service delivery gaps and socio-economic frustrations. Electricity infrastructure emerged as a primary concern. Residents expressed frustration not only with the broader national power issues and promised “load reduction” but with a severe lack of localized infrastructure. The President noted that extreme poverty and the rising cost of living have forced many expanding households to rely on illegal electricity connections, which further damages the fragile local grid.
Drawing on his own roots as a product of Soweto, Ramaphosa spoke candidly with the community’s elderly about the social decay linked to youth unemployment. He acknowledged that young people waking up with no economic prospects often wander the streets, which directly correlates with rising criminality and the vandalism of public infrastructure. To counter this, he championed the development of a self-sustaining township economy, arguing that true empowerment will only come when communities can generate their own localized job opportunities rather than waiting for external interventions.
Meanwhile, the broader provincial campaign narrative saw Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi fiercely criticising the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) electioneering tactics in Tshwane and Hammanskraal. The DA recently launched a series of billboards highlighting the ANC’s reliance on water tankers—a service delivery issue that previously triggered a Special Investigating Unit (SIU) probe into outsourced contracts.
Lesufi condemned the opposition’s billboard campaign as shamelessly opportunistic. He accused the DA of exploiting municipal failures for cheap political points, stating that the opposition prefers to “find potholes and swim in them” rather than collaborate on tangible solutions. According to the Premier, the opposition is simply erecting billboards that broadcast existing failures instead of doing the hard work of fixing the water and infrastructure crises affecting residents.
