WHAT was meant to be an election campaign for the DA Gauteng leader Solly Msimanga turned into chaos on Thursday, 15 February.
This happened when fuming residents of New Eesterust in Hammanskraal sent the DA's activists packing.
Stones were thrown at the members while the party's branding was forcefully removed.
People, including the media, were ordered to stop recording and instructed to delete content taken.
Residents said the DA failed to deliver services and blamed the DA-led coalition in Tshwane for not spending the R2.6 billion grant funding for pressing service delivery issues.
Residents further said Msimanga had no place in the townships and informal settlements, and ordered him to go and campaign in the suburbs.
Speaking to Daily Sun, Ward 95 councillor Willy Kgopa said some residents called him to come and witness what was happening.
He said the area, which also has eight informal settlements, including F4 and Stinkwater, is faced with many challenges, including not having access to water.
"Residents don't have water. Only three tankers are allocated for all these areas, and that's why people are fighting. They're angry for not receiving services, and it's disappointing that a sum of R2.6 billion had to be sent back to National Treasury after only 40% of the grant was spent," said Kgopa.
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Kgopa said he was recently attacked by angry residents who were demanding services from him.
"I get insulted only because I'm a councillor. The whole community doesn't understand that I'm a mediator between them and the City of Tshwane. This municipality is run by the DA, ActionSA and Freedom Front Plus, and they don't take townships into consideration," Kgope added.
Meanwhile, some of the residents were against what was happening, citing they wanted to engage with Msimanga to ask him questions about the challenges they faced.
"We wanted him to address us because we wanted to hear how he was going to respond to our concerns. Violence will not solve anything, but it will drag us back. We are so disappointed," said the residents.
Msimanga took to social media on his Facebook page, saying they had received threats about today's planned campaign.
"People were saying they would make sure that we didn't campaign and threatened to mobilise more people who would come and disrupt our campaign," he said.
He further said those who threatened them fear losing power and that there can never be a no-go area thirty years into democracy.
