Cape Town - Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille cancelled her election campaign drive in Manenberg, Cape Town in the Western Cape due to safety concerns, the Sunday Times reported.
Zille was expected to visit the Cape Flats township on Saturday to encourage DA supporters in the area to register for the upcoming elections, the newspaper reported.
The visit was cancelled as gunshots were heard in the area on Saturday, as gang violence resumed.
She was in neighbouring Langa before she was scheduled to move onto Manenberg, instead Zille later visited registration points in Capricorn, near Muizenberg.
“We pulled out all the DA activists from staffing tables at the registration point there...because of the resumption of shooting in the area, and because we did not want to put our activists at risk,” Zille was quoted as saying.
Chief of the Independent Electoral Commission in the Western Cape Courtney Sampson said that voting stations in Manenberg were under heavy police guard.
The party was targeting between 55 percent and 60 percent of the votes in the Western Cape this year, DA provincial leader Ivan Meyer told the newspaper.
The DA took 51 percent of the provincial vote in the previous general election in 2009.
Sapa