ANC holding all cards as election nears

If the all-powerful ANC is to be humbled at the ballot box when South Africa votes, it ought to be a message sent from somewhere like the Elias Motsoaledi settlement.

A slum, named after a hero of the apartheid struggle, it is cast in the shadow of Soweto's iconic chimneys.

The 50,000 inhabitants live on unpaved streets of broken promises.

The new South Africa of public housing, just like the electricity pylons, has passed by these tin shacks.

Yet there is an inconvenient truth for those hoping that Jacob Zuma's certain victory will be soured by a heavily reduced majority. If there is a protest vote coming that will stop the African National Congress winning the two-thirds majority it craves, it's not coming from Elias Motsoaledi.

The signs of dissent may be everywhere with ANC rivals smiling down from myriad posters. Last week, hundreds of residents marched on their local councillor's office in response to rumours that their land - to which they hold no title - had been sold out from under them. However, there are more Opposition posters than Opposition voters here.

For residents like Soloman Rampai the equation remains simple: "The people are the ANC. The ANC will always win the elections."

Unemployed, like most of his neighbours, he has plenty of time to think, and sounds even more tired of the corruption saga that has pursued the ANC leader than the 67-year-old accused himself.

"They have spent hundreds of millions of rand and found nothing."

Far from being an electoral liability for the ANC, the Zulu showman is recognised as the "Presidentertainer" as one popular newspaper dubbed him.

The streetfighter who won his titanic struggle with predecessor Thabo Mbeki, despite seven years of courtroom battles, is viewed with more affection than the man he defeated.

In the local Shebeen, or drinking den, Pina Gordon echoes the sentiments of many when he says the former deputy president must get his chance at last. "They have promised us many things and after a year we will see." Past failures, he says, "can't be blamed on the ANC".

That is exactly what Patrick Ntlali is trying to do though. Sitting in the back of an antique red Nissan he is campaigning in the slum for the minority United Democratic Movement.

"It's hard work," he admits. "These [ANC] people have a long time in power, they have all the money."

Simtha Mlawu a young musician who was still in high school in 1994, says, "The ANC isn't just a party, it's a culture. The ANC isn't Mbeki. The ANC isn't Zuma."

It is Madiba though, as Mandela is known here. Madiba is thought to get on well with "JZ", and after the frosty, paranoid Mbeki years that's enough for many people.

- INDEPENDENT