Ramaphosa says ANC remains focused on winning eThekwini despite MK lead

President Cyril Ramaphosa meets residents while campaigning in KwaZulu-Natal ahead of the local government elections. He brushed aside polls showing the MK Party leading in eThekwini, insisting the ANC remains focused on reclaiming the metro

President Cyril Ramaphosa has brushed aside election polls placing the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party ahead of the ANC in eThekwini, insisting that his party remains focused on winning the metro.

Speaking during his door-to-door campaign in KwaZulu-Natal on Wednesday, Ramaphosa said the ANC was continuing with its campaign despite the polling figures.

“Polls are polls and we note polls and we continue with our work. We are campaigning for a victory. And we note polls. We read them. We put them aside and just focus on the work that we are doing,” he said.

An Ipsos poll placed the MK Party at 55% in eThekwini among respondents who expressed a party preference, compared with 17% for the DA and 10% for the ANC.

Ramaphosa said the ANC was receiving a positive response from residents and maintained that the party had the experience needed to run the municipality.

“Our people are responding very, very positively. They know what is good for this metro. They know what is good for our municipalities. That only the ANC is capable of repositioning the municipalities,” he said.

Ramaphosa said the party had experienced people ready to take charge of the metro if it secured victory.

“We’ve got a lot of experience in governance. We’ve got a lot of experienced people who can run this metro extremely well. And they are just waiting for the victory so that they can take charge and run this municipality well,” he said.

Ramaphosa also defended the deployment of soldiers to support police in KwaZulu-Natal, saying the decision followed requests from residents and local leadership.

He stressed that the army was not being deployed to replace police officers, but to assist them in responding to challenges raised by communities.

“It’s not the army coming here to replace the police. They’re here as a supportive element to the work that is being done by the police,” he said.

Ramaphosa said residents had called for the army to support police operations and that similar deployments elsewhere in the country had produced positive results.

“We’ve deployed the army in many other places in our country and it is yielding really good results for us. We expect that the very positive results will also ensue here,” he said.