COPE in drive to sign new members

COPE’s premier candidate Bishop Lievie Sharpley joined volunteers in door-to-door campaigns in Port Elizabeth’s northern areas yesterday, where he welcomed a number of residents who joined the party.

Sharpley, accompanied by members and volunteers in COPE T-shirts, went knocking on doors in the impoverished Kleinskool community, where he visited shack dwellers.

The volunteers sang and danced outside the shacks, brandishing membership forms and asking passersby to join the party, before distributing T-shirts to those who signed on the dotted line.

In less than an hour in the area, the party signed up about 20 new members, who promised to vote for COPE president Mosiuoa Lekota.

Newly signed member Amy Williams welcomed the party into her tiny shack, where she told Sharpley she would vote for COPE because she wanted a better life.

“I have always voted for the ANC, and nothing has come right in our area.

“I was born here in Kleinskool, and yet there are people who are getting houses first who have only lived here for a short while,” the 56-year-old woman said.

Sharpley said it was very sad that 20 years into democracy, there were still people who lived without basic services.

“Walking through here, one sees such poverty, people whose circumstances have not been improved in the last 20 years. “It’s very sad. “This is why I am in politics after years in the ministry, for whatever little contribution I can make.”

- Thulani Gqirana