The Democratic Alliance’s “Ayisafani” election TV advertisement — originally pulled off the air by the SABC — had garnered more than half a million views on YouTube by the weekend.
More than 555 000 people have viewed the ad on the social media site since it was posted on 8 April. It has more than 4 500 likes and 310 thumbs down.
The ad 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, e-tolls 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 ad, 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 ad, 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 8 and 9 April.
The party then laid a complaint with the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa).
Watch the ad (via YouTube):
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.
Meanwhile, the SABC has banned an Economic Freedom Fighters election advert, party leader Julius Malema said on Tuesday.
“The SABC wrongly and illegally banned this advert because of the EFF’s decisive position, shown in the advert, that in an instance when it takes government it will physically destroy the undemocratically imposed e-tolls,” he told reporters in Johannesburg.
“The SABC refuses to air this advert, arguing that it incites violence.”
Malema said the EFF had lodged a complaint with Icasa. He said the SABC was trying to keep the EFF out of the public eye.
The public broadcaster allocated free slots to political parties contesting the general elections on radio and television.
Malema said his party submitted its advert, which was supposed to be aired on 20 April, but was not. The EFF would take legal action against the SABC and would roll out mass action on 29 April.
“The SABC, which reports to Luthuli House, has acted in the interests of their wishes to suppress the fact that the ruling party imposed e-tolls on South Africans,” he said. “The advert must be aired on SABC television to allow voters … [to] make an informed choice about who should govern, particularly in Gauteng.” — Sapa