COSATU general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi says it is not plausible that State Security Minister Siyabonga Cwele did not know his wife Sheryl was a drug dealer

"One of the things that has completely embarrassed us, is this minister. He is employed to look after our security but says 'I don't know that my wife is selling drugs'. How do you defend that? It is absolutely embarrassing," Vavi said.

He was speaking yesterday at the SA Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers' Union Shoprite shop stewards council in Cape Town.

He pleaded with the shop stewards not to let "rotten potatoes" prevent them from voting ANC in the elections.

"The ANC has committed a number of mistakes but all those mistakes combined do not amount to the progress we have made under its leadership," Vavi said.

Reminding his audience that the opposition DA and its predecessor, the DP, had opposed all new labour laws, Vavi said: "Everything we like as workers the DA has opposed. Everything we like, they hate".

He said there was a new sense of optimism among workers in Cape Town.

He said the DA was not assured of victory in the elections in Cape Town.

"There is a new hope that Cape Town will no longer be the island of racism again where people are being kept apart from one another, just to feed into ambitions of politicians who have no vision whatsoever to build a better life for all of our people" Vavi said.

He added that there could be "no excuse" for the ANC-run Moqhaka municipality to have erected open toilets, "just like the KwaNdebele bantustan".

Speaking at the same meeting, union leader and ANC Cape Town mayoral candidate Tony Ehrenreich said if he were elected he would declare "every job in the city a permanent job".

Ehrenreich said he would make sure that Cape Town became known as a "decent work city".