Moses Mabhida turns black, green and gold as ANC supporters arrive in mass

ANC supporters are gathering at Durban’s Moses Mabhida stadium ahead of the ruling party’s manifesto launch, at an event that also sees them celebrated their 107th birthday.

One of the ANC’s Twitter accounts shared pictures showing KwaZulu-Natal chairman Sihle Zikalala’s predictions that the stadium, with a capacity of 85000 people, would be completely full by 10am, may well come true.

Journalist Ferial Haffajee took to Twitter to share some of the fashion on display at the event, and to note the attendance of “celebrities and social influencers” such as Khanyi Mbau and Nina Hastie.

Even infamous portrait artist Lebani ‘Ras’ Sirenje is there. ‘Rasta’ is often roasted on social media for his portraits, mainly painted at funerals and memorials, which offer a unique interpretation of how famous South Africans look.

The event will see President Cyril Ramaphosa give his first ANC anniversary address in an area known as the stronghold of his predecessor and political rival, former president Jacob Zuma.

The ANC has been campaigning in the region throughout this week, with Ramaphosa promoting unity between the factions in his party and showing a united front with Zuma.

While the 2016 municipal elections saw the ANC take a significant knock in term of their share of the vote, and lose out on some key metros (one of which – Nelson Mandela Bay – they’ve since effectively regained control of although the current mayor is from the UDM), they may make somewhat of a comeback this year.

This is according to an opinion poll released recently by research company Ipsos.

Between October 23 and December 4 last year, Ipsos conducted face-to-face interviews with 3,571 adults, with 61% of them saying they would cast their vote in favour of the governing party in May.

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