What was said between Zuma and Sotashe remains unknown as, in an unusual move, they travelled together on the back seat of the president’s car. Publicly, Zuma expressed his full confidence in Sotashe – and the ANC in the Western Cape.

“I’m confident this metro can be taken over by the ANC,” Zuma told journalists after a second house visit in Site C, Khayelitsha. “I found today more than any other time, the (ANC provincial) leadership is very united… That’s important to uproot the DA.”

People were “very clear” in what they wanted on 3 August and who was behind their current difficulties.

“The ANC is not in charge of the municipality here. All of them here are saying the DA has failed them. The DA concentrates on their areas, not them,” Zuma said. “People are very clear what the source of their hardship is.”

And that pretty much summed up the message for the day: people were suffering because the ANC was not in power in Cape Town, and the upcoming local government vote was an opportunity to take the city.

But the numbers are stacked against the ANC. In the 2011 local government elections the ANC received 32.8% polling support against the DA’s 60.92%. Hit by a series of internal ructions, then and more recently, the ANC knows these have cost it support. And in many of its strongholds, the ANC has registered fewer voters than the DA in theirs. Fewer registrations, fewer potential votes.

Head of ANC campaign Nomvula Mokonyane on Thursday remained upbeat, saying voter registration numbers were higher in the new settlements: “We’ll do much better. We’ll make a huge gain”. It wasn’t that people didn’t support the ANC, she added, but it was a question of “how the ANC manages its internal matters”.

But tongues were wagging when, despite facing a disciplinary hearing for sexual harassment, Western Cape ANC chairman Marius Fransman joined Thursday’s high-profile campaigning event. He had been asked to step aside earlier in the year in the wake of the sexual harassment report to police.

While the excitement of the large crowds, and patience as the presidential campaign trail ran horribly late, were palpable, the programme was carefully laid out into ANC strongholds, and areas where the ANC may just inch past the DA.

The first stop after a briefing at the ANC constituency office at Philippi Plaza was in Ward 80, Siyahlala. It is solidly ANC, which gained 80.49% of the votes there in 2011, according to the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC). The DA trailed at 10.84%, and others barely notched up votes.

But on the sidelines of Zuma’s two house visits and a mini rally emerged the stories of unemployment, child care grants as the only source of income, and horrid living conditions.

One woman ditched her washing, grabbed a chair and came to listen to Zuma. “I am suffering. If it rains, water comes into the house,” said the woman, who did not want to be named, adding that her youngest child had a rash. Nomsa Mnyantsa is 32, and despite a public management qualification, has not found a job since 2009. “There is an age restriction. No one past 25 is hired. I am 32. I will never find a job,” she sighs.

Two schoolgirls were around because they could not get to class because trains were cancelled (news reports indicated copper cable theft).

There were questions as to why Zuma stopped by the home of a woman whose husband worked. But Nosiphiwo Golodo, like several others, said she was happy Zuma had come: “He proves he cares”. And communal toilets became the vantage point from which to spot the president.

In Khayelitsha’s Site C, about 3,000 residents, including many young people, patiently waited to listen to Zuma. Music was laid on at the intersection with the petrol station, and several people walked around clad in yellow ANC T-shirts. Ward 87 is solid ANC territory: it clocked up 93.38% support in 2011, with the DA in a distant second at 2.55%, according to the IEC.

The back roads to the two homes Zuma visited amid extensive security, including a team of counterassault police with automatic weapons, exploded with taxi traffic once the president left to do his electioneering on the ANC election truck around the corner. Mokonyane led the crowd in the chant: “First ballot?”, “ANC” it came back, followed by another “ANC” to her “Second ballot?”.

The next stop, Delft on the Cape Flats, was a little different. There the ANC in 2011 trailed by about 15% behind the DA, which won Ward 20 with 52.82%. But the turnout ran well over 2,000, and as in Site C, the welcome was enthusiastic. The “vote ANC for change” message from the party election truck stayed consistent.

But the tone changed in Surrey Estate where Zuma had been invited for lunch by the Muslim Judicial Council (MJC), but arrived around 16:00 due to earlier delays.

“If I were campaigning – here I can’t campaign, I must humble myself as a guest – I would say I have a feeling there would be many votes coming to the ANC,” said Zuma, who earlier delivered a message about South Africans of different religions working together.

And that feeling just turned out to be spot on: “I support the ANC,” said former MJC president Maulana Ishaan Hendricks in closing the meeting. “We have not come to pray… We’ve come to pronounce our support for the ANC.”

That came as a surprise, some ANC leaders acknowledged, but a welcome one that may just make it a little easier for former ANC Western Cape premier turned ambassador Ebrahim Rasool to do his bit from this week’s Muslim Friday prayers.

For one Grade 10 pupil at the Darul Islam Islamic school the visit brought out a huge smile – and a photo as a keepsake. But as Zuma was getting ready to leave, it was the presidential cavalcade of black sedans, 4x4s, other luxury cars and marked police vehicles that also caught her attention, as that of the neighbours.

Many stood by watching, with cameras at the ready, as the convoy pulled out – past a “Vote Muslim Congress” election poster – en route to the day’s last engagement, an interview at uMhlobo Wenene, the SABC’s isiXhosa radio station with well over 4-million listeners according to a recent radio audience measurement survey.

There are 12 days to go before the 3 August municipal poll. For Sotashe, Thursday’s campaign trail went well, although he maintained that his conversation with the president would remain private.

“Our campaign is in full swing. Today is testimony to that. We will surprise a lot of people come 3 August,” Sotashe told Daily Maverick. “We are soldiering on.” DM

Photo: President Jacob Zuma campaigns in Cape Tow, 21 July 2016. (Marianne Merten)