Rock 'n roll in Nompumelelo
It's Wednesday night and we're sitting packed like pilchards in a primary school classroom in Nompumelelo, an informal settlement in the heart of East London's suburban belt. On the walls are pencil crayon
Residents voice their concerns in Nompumelelo. PIC: Theo Jephta
drawings of the South African flag by the Sinempumelelo Primary kids. Behind me is the clean-up roster for the pupils, and, oddly, a clipping from our paper of Rhodes Vice-Chancellor Saleem Badat's tribute to Steve Biko is pasted to the wall.
It's the second of our Community Dialogue series in our experiment with civic journalism and the room is packed with folk from this poor neighbourhood, part shanty town, part state housing. They are wearing the colours of all the major political players: the bright yellow of Cope, the blue of the DA and, up front, there's a contingent wearing ANC's t-shirts with Jacob Zuma grinning back at my deputy editor Bongani Siqoko and I.
It will not be long before we learn some important lessons about trying to do civic journalism in SA.
Scridb filterWhy the ANC should be worried
The results of Wednesday’s by-elections, including two in the Eastern Cape, provide a fascinating insight into the state of play in the ongoing tussle between the ANC and the Congress of the People.
The ANC won both Eastern Cape by-elections in Adelaide and in Alice but the victories are only a small part of the story.
The ANC was quick to issue a statement crowing that “claims that the ANC has been losing support in the province have thus been proven grossly exaggerated.”
The party should have spent some time examining their results more closely before shouting about their victories.