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SA Electioneering Diary – 12 May

SA Electioneering Diary – 12 May

The ANC has allegedly sent a treasury report lambasting its governance back for "repackaging" while Zuma has denied Malema's land-grab plans. The DA mayor of Cape Town Dan Plato is happy with how he did. The FF+ announces strife in the Cape Town municipality and Cope announced its rather colourful mayoral candidate for Johannesburg. Electoral toilet news is now in blitz form at the bottom. By SIMON WILLIAMSON.

ANC

Government spokesman Jimmy Manyi has denied cabinet sent a report on municipalities back to the treasury to be “repackaged”. He was responding to a report by Beeld (the newspaper claims it has a copy of the report) which said “ministers were so worried about the impact of the report during its tabling, taking place as it would shortly before next week’s local government elections, that they told the treasury to ‘repackage’ the findings.” Beeld says the report exposes 46 municipalities which have not issued audit reports, 70% of financial information is unusable, 48% of financial information is untrustworthy and 25% of municipalities have no supporting documents. DA leader Helen Zille has called on President Jacob Zuma to release the report before the 18 May election.

Treasury report: IOL

Three Mpumalanga municipalities were congratulated by MEC for co-operative governance and traditional affairs Madala Masuku. Have we really reached the point where we are congratulating people for stuff they are supposed to be doing anyway? The municipalities are Victor Khanye (near Delmas) and Steve Tshwete (Middelburg) municipalities and Enhlanzeni district municipality.

Read more: Sowetan

Gauteng Premier Nomvula Mokonyane has been accused of “blatant electioneering” when she released a report yesterday on how Gauteng municipalities functioned. We wonder if the same accusations were made at the DA’s release of “The Cape Town Story”.

Read more: EWN

Cosatu leader Zwelenzima Vavi yesterday called on voters to put their X next to the ANC’s logo to “swell its ranks so that they [workers] can fix its mistakes”. Vavi does seem intent on “fixing” the organisation from the inside. The ANC’s conference next year should be awesome. In the same speech, Vavi criticised Zuma’s nephew, Khulubuse Zuma, for donating money to the ANC instead of paying his workers.

Read more: IOL

Zuma was campaigning in (IFP-governed) Msinga, Greytown, yesterday and sought to put farmers’ concerns at ease regarding land restitution claims made by Julius Malema recently. Zuma said policy decisions had nothing to do with any one person and denied that taking away land without compensation was party policy. “There were many Malemas before, but issues were discussed within the organisation and policies formulated. You will be surprised that one day Malema will be stopping others from raising what he had raised before.” Zuma repeated for the umpteenth time that nationalisation of mines was not ANC policy.

Read more: TimesLIVE

Leave it to the deputy to talk sense. Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, while campaigning in Emalangeni, KZN, yesterday said the government at all levels should be constantly talking to people to avoid situations such as the open toilets in Moqhaka municipality. Motlanthe criticised members who mobilise only for elections and internal party fights: “[there should be]no fight between A and B on how they are deployed”. “You must do as deployed, don’t protest.” And most significantly, “people died for us to rule this country, do not play with it”.

Read more: The New Age

The ANC has urged all employers to let their workers vote on 18 May. Since voting is a democratic right we assume people will be prosecuted if they prevent others from voting?

Read more: Politicsweb


DA

Speculation is rife, according to the Cape Times, as to who will be in Patricia de Lille’s mayoral committee. Names being tossed around include Ian Neilson (current deputy mayor), JP Smith (long-serving councillor) and Beverly Cortje-Alcock. De Lille is also expected to haul in at least one member of the Independent Democrats who will probably be Gerhard Ras. Helen Zille has denied any discussions have taken place, and this was confirmed this morning by DA strategist and advisor to the premier of Western Cape, Ryan Coetzee.

Read more: IOL

Current mayor of Cape Town, Dan Plato, the man who succeeded Helen Zille, has made a farewell speech. In it he covered his successes including boosting city finances, refurbishing electricity services, upgrading waste water treatment plants, investing in the water supply system and dealing with the waste disposal system. Plato said the city consistently hit its housing targets, always spent its budget and established a disaster risk management centre.

Read more: Politicsweb


IFP

The IFP will be campaigning in Eastern Cape today. You can attend in the Chris Hani District – Nsomo at 10:00 and Engcobo at 14:00. No specific venues have been listed.

Business Day says the IFP faces the first real test in its traditional voter base as the 2011 elections will face it off against the National Freedom Party, a breakaway led by Zanele Mgwaza-Msibi. The IFP took a beating in the 2009 national elections from a slick ANC campaign in KwaZulu-Natal and the ramifications of a growing ANC and unknown NFP entity could spark some interesting calculations come 19 May.

Read more: Business Day


COPE

Cope has announced its mayoral candidate for Johannesburg – Preddy Mothopeng. In a bizarre press conference yesterday, Mothopeng said Cope was like God and that “The holy book states that… the Almighty created heaven and earth, day and night, all in six days and on the seventh day he relaxed. We are saying that it will take Cope six days and on the seventh day it will be time for change witnessed internationally.” And “If God can do it, why can’t we do it?” Mothopeng accused Joburg local government of trying to halve the population with the rising acid water level and went on to say he wanted police to have mental evaluations, totally missing the most apparent irony in political history.

Read more: The Star

Spokesman for the Cope Youth Movement, Marius Redelinghuys, has slammed ex-leader-ex-deputy-leader Mbazima Shilowa for declaring he will not be voting this election. “His withdrawal from participating in the local government elections because he did not get his way portrays him as a little boy throwing his toys around in a fit of rage.” It’s a pity. Cope-Lekota (currently the real Cope) has managed to string a week of sensible electioneering across Northern and Eastern Cape together before falling into the usual rut of whining about Shilowa again.

Read more: Politicsweb


FF+

The Freedom Front Plus has released a statement criticising the fragility of the cooperation between the DA and ID. The party accuses  the DA of holding the budget back in case ID councillors vote against it. “The DA is today paying the price for their[sic] leader, Helen Zille’s earlier impetuousness in that she had pushed aside the multiparty group, consisting of the FF Plus, ACDP, UDM and others. The implication is that the DA was today again sold out by the unreliability of its new partner – the ID.”

Read more: Politicsweb

FF+ leader Piet Mulder doesn’t believe that the electoral map of South Africa will change enormously unless ANC voters boycott the election and newer coalitions are formed. “Why coalitions? Because the figures and projections show that, apart from perhaps Cape Town, no opposition party will be capable of beating the ANC in any of the large metros.” Mulder mentioned PE as the most likely upset (the ANC garnered 50% of the vote there in 2009), but noted that the ANC won more than 60% of the votes in Johannesburg and Pretoria. It was a pretty interesting statement. Worth a read.

Read more: Politicsweb


Miscellaneous

For some electoral predictions by a highly experienced South African journalist, see what Allister Sparks had to say in Business Day yesterday.

Read more: Business Day

Police boss Bheki Cele says North West, expected to be a volatile province during election time, is ready for 18 May. He will be visiting Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal next to inspect their preparations.

A South African election Q&A on Reuters discusses what is at stake, the possible impact, the electoral importance, main issues and major contests.

Read more: Reuters


Toilet electioneering blitz

The ANC has told communities to report open toilets. The IFP says it has found open toilets in another ANC ward in Khustong – the ANC strongly denies this. Cope accuses the ANC of toilet hypocrisy and Fedusa has told them all to shut up and focus on poverty, infrastructure and jobs.

Read more: Politicsweb, Politicsweb, Politicsweb


Photo: A mother washes clothes as an African National Congress (ANC) election poster is seen on the shack she and her family live in at Waterworks, an informal settlement outside Soweto May 9, 2011. It took 12 years after the end of apartheid for the Waterworks shantytown to get running water, and 17 years for the ruling ANC to face a voter backlash from its disenchanted residents. In Waterworks and many similar settlements across South Africa, the biggest issue for municipal elections on May 18 is the unfulfilled dream of African National Congress rule. Picture taken May 9. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko.

Gallery

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