Several thousand people gathered on a field outside Cofimvaba in the former Transkei, near where Hani was born, to hear ANC president Thabo Mbeki and other political heavy weights urge them to cast their votes for the ruling party on June 2.
Mbeki pledged that after the election more would be done to improve roads, education and access to water in the area.
"We have to address the challenges of development in the Transkei knowing it is one of the most underdeveloped areas in the country," he said.
Mbeki paid tribute to Hani who he said had never fought for high office but only to liberate his people.
A light drizzle fell intermittently throughout the day, and that together with muddy roads in the area caused by recent heavy rains meant attendance at the rally was lower than organisers had hoped.
Former Pan Africanist Congress MP Malcolm Dyani also urged that people vote for the ANC, to which he recently defected.
Dyani accused the PAC of acting like the Democratic Party and said he no longer belonged in its ranks.
He claimed there were other PAC members who also wanted to defect but were afraid to do so.
Eastern cape premier Makhenkisi Stofile said the ANC would not apologise for wanting a two-thirds majority in the June poll, saying every party wanted to win 100 percent of a vote.
After the rally, Mbeki and his entourage travelled down muddy roads to Lower Sabalele where Hani was born in 1942.
Hani's frail 81-year-old mother Nomayisi still lives there and Mbeki visited her and her two sons, Christopher and Victor, before addressing a small meeting of local residents.
Chris Hani's real name was Martin Thembisile Hani, but he took the pseudonym Chris, after his brother Christopher, when he joined the armed struggle against white rule.
Hani was gunned down in the driveway of this Boksburg home in April 1993.
On Wednesday the Truth and Reconciliation Commission refused amnesty to Hani's killers - Conservative Party Member of Parliament Clive Derby-Lewis and Polish immigrant Janusz Walus.
Asked about reports that National Party cabinet minister Pik Botha had expressed interest in joining the ANC, Mbeki said the issue had not been discussed.
"He (Botha) has not made any approach to the ANC. I am sure he is not going to do that."
The Eastern Cape is expected to be hotly contested in the June poll, and while ANC leaders dismiss support for former homeland military ruler Bantu Holomisa's United Democratic Movement as inconsequential, they are taking the campaign in the province very seriously.
"Holomisa, who was expelled from the ANC after accusing Public Enterprises Minister Stella Sigcau of taking a bribe, commands considerable support from thousands of people who served as civil servants under his regime in the former homeland.
Several other rallies to commemorate Hani's death were also staged around the country on Saturday.