Johannesburg - The Democratic Alliance's “Ayisafani” (It's not the same) election TV advert - originally pulled off the air by the SABC - had garnered nearly half a million views on Youtube by Saturday.
Over 491 000 people have viewed the advertisement on the social media site since it was posted on April 8. It has 3796 likes and 237 thumbs down.
The advert shows the DA's Gauteng premier candidate and spokesman, Mmusi Maimane, standing in front of a mirror talking about the current state of the country.
On the Youtube posting, the DA has added a caption below calling for supporters to “Help the DA fight corruption, eTolls and Nkandla” - as well as providing a link for donations.
Under the video link, a variety of comments - some of them heated - weigh up the merits of the advertisement.
A more light-hearted batch are about the English automatic captions that Youtube has created for the advertisement.
Maimane's declaration that “there have been some great leaders”, has been reinterpreted by the captioning as him saying “there has been some crazy to see leaders”.
At one point in the advertisement, a mention of the ANC is subtitled as “Nancy” and Maimane's final slogan line: “ANC Ayisafani, together we can bring hope”, is 'translated' as “ENC, I said fine to get weekend.”
This week, it was announced that the television advertisement, as well as five radio ads, would be aired by the SABC after the national broadcaster originally pulled them from the air after being flighted for two days on April 8 and 9.
The party then laid a complaint with the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa).
On Wednesday, a hearing by the Complaints and Compliance Committee at Icasa was postponed after the SABC hired a new legal team.
The DA accepted the postponement on condition that the party's six adverts be aired with immediate effect.
Originally, the SABC said it could not broadcast the advertisements on grounds related to incitement of violence, publication of false information about election candidates and parties, the perceived personal nature of the attack on Zuma and advertising standards that did not allow the discrediting of one product to promote another. - Sapa