There was a moment on Sunday 28 April in the kraal of Chief Manzolwandle, roughly a 10km drive outside Mqanduli on a newly graded gravel road in the rolling green hills of old Transkei, about 40km from Mthatha, when President Cyril Ramaphosa’s security detail appeared a little more tense than usual. Three days ago, in Duncan Village outside East London, there was also an unusual severity about them, perhaps related to the community protests in the area where tyres were burnt and roads had to be closed.

This time, though, the president found himself in the same space as a rather moody bull. Animals can be more unpredictable and deadlier than their human counterparts. Locals say the raging one was a gift from the chief to the president. Perhaps the small scuffle by some young ones to get a presidential selfie also had something to do with it. This unusual turn of events was the exception.

Party rallies are usually planned so smoothly that there are few glitches and surprises. The speeches become repetitive. There was much excitement, for instance, in Mqanduli when Ramaphosa promised that each school child would get a tablet — and, he added, we are talking about computers here. It’s a joke with much mileage — everywhere he speaks in front of a fresh audience, people laugh at this obvious statement.

Ramaphosa made an express point of mentioning that he thinks Mqanduli should be the first place to get these, and that deputy minister of labour Patekile Holomisa (who is from the area and who was present at the rally) recommended that this be the case.

This, and the promise that Mqanduli will get its share of the R300-billion foreign investment that’s coming South Africa’s way, made the Daily Dispatch front page. This promise, too, is part of the standard campaign speech, with only the place names changing.

A local, who didn’t provide his name, said it was the first time Ramaphosa had come to Mqanduli to see them, and he hoped the president would be back to see how his promises were doing:

“I just want mongameli (“the president”) to come back after the elections, to check how we’re feeling, to ask us, to see about the changes. He promised us, we’re waiting to see. We are willing to see mongameli make changes, here in Mqanduli.”

The self-employed entrepreneur and former Joburg taxi driver said he wanted his life to be better than that of his parents, who were born in poverty and were doomed to die in poverty too.

Despite an enthusiastic show for the party at the small rally in front of the chief’s place, it really is the vastly popular Bantu Holomisa’s UDM that still rules in many of the wards.

A large billboard of Holomisa on the way to Mqanduli — on the road to the well-visited and comparatively thriving holiday spots of Coffee Bay and Hole-in-the-Wall — bears witness to that. The ANC will have to deliver hard on its promises if Ramaphosa is to win hearts here.

Ramaphosa didn’t joke around in Mqanduli. He omitted to tell two of his usual bedroom jokes — the one where, during a door-to-door in Komani (Queenstown) in 2016 a woman invited him into her house to see it and to try out her new bed, and the other where he urges people to postpone their morning bedroom business to get up and vote at 7am. These two always elicit laughs. Perhaps Ramaphosa felt it wasn’t fit for a rural audience, or perhaps he himself was tired of it.

Perhaps he was still guarded after an interesting slip at the late-afternoon rally on Friday in Duncan Village. There he did tell his usual jokes, and, as usual, spoke about the economy. However, in the audience there was a man bearing a striking resemblance to the young Nelson Mandela, carrying a home-printed poster. It was the 42-year-old Ayanda Mbatyothi, who has acted as Madiba’s younger double in plays and comedies, but who really is a big village novelty here. His act got him to shake the hands of presidents (from Mandela to Jacob Zuma) and also that of Ramaphosa on Friday. His poster read:

“Make South Africa great again, Mr Ramaphosa.”

In his speech of fairly elementary Xhosa (according to a local, and in contrast to Zuma, who could keep listeners in this province spellbound with a mix of deep Xhosa and Zulu), Ramaphosa said:

“We want to see how the elections will turn out. After the elections, we will see people say, ‘now we have confidence that South Africa will continue to go forward, and that we will make South Africa great again’.”

It wasn’t a once-off slip. He repeated it once more, although it’s not quite clear whether this Trumpian saying ever was in the official script. DM