Parties contest S.Africa's richest province
SOWETO, South Africa (AFP) - South Africa's two main political parties are setting out their stalls for the 2014 election, with the country's key province Gauteng shaping up to be a key battleground.
In recent days the African National Congress (ANC), in power for 19 years, and main opposition the Democratic Alliance (DA) have held town hall discussions and rallies in the region, which encompasses Johannesburg and Pretoria.
The country's smallest and most populated province, it holds the seat of government and the economic heartland of Africa's largest economy.
President Jacob Zuma, on the hunt for a second term in office, on Friday visited the suburb where Nelson Mandela used to live in the iconic Johannesburg township Soweto.
"Get well, Mandela, get well!" was a popular chant as he spoke to cheering students and schoolchildren, the day the global peace icon marked a week in hospital for a recurring lung infection.
Meanwhile DA leader Helen Zille was clear on her party's target for parliamentary and presidential polls.
"The DA is marching towards victory in Gauteng next year," she told a sea of supporters dressed in the party's blue at a rally in Johannesburg on Saturday.
"South Africa stands or falls on Gauteng's success because of its economic might. If South Africa is to succeed, Gauteng must succeed."
This will be a key fight in upcoming polls, agreed political analyst Cherell Africa.
"Gauteng is a very strategic province. It is a very important province economically," she told AFP.
"It is strategic in terms of if they want to damage the ANC," said Africa, who heads the politics department at the University of the Western Cape.
The ANC won 2009 polls with 65.9 percent nationally, against the DA's 16.7 percent.
But the opposition's representation in Gauteng shot to over 33 percent in a municipal vote two years later.
Though the ANC still firmly controls the province, protests over poor electricity, water and sanitation services have increased.
A massive municipal mishap in the provincial capital Johannesburg provoked scandal as residents received erroneous utility bills amounting to thousands of rand (dollars, euros).
The DA, smelling blood, has thrown its weight and funds behind a mass civil society court battle against planned tolling on Gauteng's main highway.
The party said it wanted to win another key province after taking the Western Cape -- which includes Cape Town -- in the previous elections.
Zuma has defended his track record, slamming critics such as the DA who point out sluggish economic growth and 25 percent unemployment as well as massive labour unrest in the mining sector during his four years in office.
"They've forgotten that this government is trying to fix problems that have been there for centuries," he told students at the University of Johannesburg's Soweto campus on Friday.
The ANC has drawn a lot of mileage from the DA's image as a party for whites. Black DA supporters are "un-African", the ANC has said.
Zuma launched a charm offensive in mixed-race communities in Gauteng, focusing on an anti-drug campaign.
Many commentators saw this as an attempt to lure them away from the DA, their likely voting choice.
Both parties promise a better future, but ironically the apartheid past is prominent in the debate.
Slogans in support of 94-year-old Mandela, the country's first black president, are an open reminder of the ANC's past as liberation movement.
It keeps referring to that history to appeal to voters.
But the DA has hit back with a campaign showing its own leaders' role in fighting against the white-minority regime.
A big advertisement in Soweto recalls how Zille exposed the apartheid police killing of activist Steve Biko in 1977 when she was a young journalist.
But the DA stronghold the Western Cape is the only province where blacks are a minority.
Gauteng is majority black, and in a country where race-based politics is an important factor in votes, the party has a battle on its hands.
"I don't see it will be likely the DA wins Gauteng," said Africa.
"The trend has been that where people are dissatisfied with the ANC they tend to opt out of voting. It's not that they would move to the DA."