The UDM is betting on a familiar face and disillusioned voters as it seeks to make inroads in the Eastern Cape metro.
United Democratic Alliance (UDM) deputy leader, Nqabayomzi Kwankwa. Picture: Gallo Images/Jeffrey Abrahams
The ANC is feeling the pinch of Bantu Holomisa’s United Democratic Movement (UDM) fishing in its pond in Buffalo City.
The UDM is fielding its deputy president, Nqabayomzi Kwankwa, as its mayoral candidate in Buffalo City metro in the upcoming local government elections.
Kwankwa takes aim at ANC stronghold
Kwankwa is originally from Phiri Mission outside Qonce, formerly King William’s Town, which, he claims, made him “deeply understand the dynamics of the Buffalo City and region”.
Besides, Kwankwa is a resident with a national political footprint as an MP and the UDM’s national deputy president.
His campaigning in the area, one of the ANC strongholds in the Eastern Cape, gives the majority party sleepless nights.
Kwankwa vowed to stay and operate in Buffalo City if he is elected as mayor in November.
“I am not going to be like others who leave after being elected; I come from here, I will stay here, this is my home,” he said.
With Holomisa close to retirement as UDM president, Kwankwa is regarded as the party’s heir apparent, something he alluded to during the interview.
“I want to work hard to show our president that when he leaves, his project is not about to collapse,” Kwankwa said.
Disgruntled youth seen as key target
Kwankwa and Holomisa have intensified the UDM election campaign in both Buffalo City and Nelson Mandela Bay, where the party once acquired the mayorship with the late Mongameli Bobani.
Kwankwa said UDM was targeting “the youth that the ANC is using as their workhorses and their step ladder to power, but neglecting them when it comes to positions. The youth in Buffalo City is disgruntled because it is overlooked.”
However, he added the UDM was not deliberately recruiting ANC or EFF members in Buffalo City, but is taking people who are already leaving these parties and looking for a new political home, due to dissatisfaction with service delivery by the ANC in the city.
He said during infighting, ANC leaders often sideline members who have a good following and take unpopular figures to represent the party.
But the UDM is eyeing the members the ANC isolates.
ANC tensions could boost UDM
It’s difficult to know if the UDM support is growing in the area, but that would be determined by the election results in November.
ANC members, reacting positively to the UDM recruitment, are unhappy about alleged councillor candidate nominations manipulation by Buffalo City mayor Princess Faku.
“The growth of the UDM in the Dr Rubusana Region is due to alleged irregularities in the candidate selection processes,” an ANC member claimed on condition of anonymity.
“It is alleged these processes were influenced by Princess Faku, Bongiwe Saule, the deputy regional secretary and Yomelela Tyali, the regional treasurer,” the disillusioned ANC member added.
