Voters should forget about independent candidates and vote for the African National Congress (ANC), Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma told traders in Durban.

The former African Union Commission chairperson, campaigning for the ANC said: "I think the people should forget about independents. They should vote for the ANC.”

Dlamini-Zuma was speaking at the Mansell Road Market in central Durban where she received a rapturous welcome on Wednesday morning.

In KwaZulu-Natal many aspirant ANC and South African Communist Party members are standing as independent candidates in the upcoming local government elections after they failed to be nominated by the party.

In some wards the rivalry between those nominated and those not nominated has been fierce and there have been many wards in the province where the party faithful have claimed that candidates have been imposed on them.

But Dlamini-Zuma questioned the effectiveness of any candidate even if they managed to win.

“If you are independent, what can you do? The ANC will be running the municipality and they will be in the council, so they will be able to deal with the budget and give money for services. An independent [candidate] cannot do that,” she said.

She said she was confident that the ANC would do well in the elections next week. Asked how she thought other parties might perform in the elections, she said that she could not talk about them.

“When you go for election you want to win and you want to improve from where you were last time. We are trying to win everywhere. We are campaigning. We are leaving nothing to chance because we want to win.”

Dlamini Zuma, who was expected to visit another market later in the day before joining sports minister Fikile Mbalula at a mini-rally in KwaMashu, said: “We are here today. And you can see we have a lot of support here. We are trying to get the voters to go out on the 3rd to vote and to vote ANC.”