ANC

Now that he’s covered Christianity in its entirety, President Jacob Zuma has informed residents in Phola near Lichtenburg (North West) that the ancestors will turn their backs on people who leave the ANC. “The ancestors will turn their backs against you and you will be bad luck forever if you leave the ANC unhappy.” I expect we’ll be told that Sheeva and Allah will be pissed off when the Zuma visits Durban and the Bo-Kaap, respectively.

Staying on religion: Gauteng Premier Nomvula Mokonyane attended a prayer day at the Standard Bank Arena yesterday to pray for peaceful elections. After telling the crowd that lies and deceit can be used during election time to polarise people, she then said “As a God-fearing nation, we need to earnestly pray and ask for God’s will to prevail in these elections”. It may (unfortunately, as we expect our leaders to know the Constitution) surprise her to know that we are in fact not a God-fearing nation, but that anyone in our country who wishes to fear God may do so.

One of the tripartite alliance’s top brains (whether you agree or disagree with his politics, you can’t deny the oke is smart), Jeremy Cronin, has warned that infighting within the alliance is pushing voters away. He said dissatisfaction with election lists should not result in infighting: “There are problems around (candidates) lists. A lot of dissatisfactions are[sic]directed at individuals … but now it is not the time. We need to win with an overwhelming ANC victory, and we cannot afford to divide and factionalise ourselves.”

Read more: BusinessLive

The ANC’s Siyanqoba rally will take place at the FNB Stadium (which you may know as Soccer City) on 15 May and aims to host 100,000 people which includes a section outside the stadium where people can watch on a big screen. The rally will be broadcast in the Khayelitsha Rugby Stadium in Cape Town, Vodacom Park Stadium in Manguang and Harry Gwala Stadium in Pietermaritzburg. You will also be able to watch it on SABC 1 and etv, as well as listen to it on some SABC radio stations.

Read more: Politicsweb

An ANC statement yesterday claimed the DA had agreed to stop distributing the unbranded pamphlet which alleges Trevor Manuel told people not to vote for the ANC. To our knowledge there is no proof or admission that the DA ever did distribute the pamphlet (confirmed by the DA strategist Ryan Coetzee this morning) so the statement doesn’t make much sense to us. However, it does say the ANC is continuing to push the investigation: “We shall, however, continue with our complaint currently before the law enforcement agencies. The DA must account for its fraudulent and irresponsible act of peddling and spreading malicious falsehoods about the ANC and comrade Trevor before a court of law.”

Read more: Politicsweb

Gauteng MEC for finance Mandla Nkomfe has congratulated the province’s municipalities as they continue to move toward better financial practices. This came after Premier Nomvula Mokonyane announced that 73% of municipalities had clean financial audits. In our books, that’s only a B and the biggest test mark (City of Johannesburg) is yet to come in.

Read more: Politicsweb

We reported yesterday that Jacob Zuma, while visiting Msinga in Greytown, sought to put farmers’ concerns at ease regarding recent land redistribution claims by Julius Malema and the ANC Youth League. Zuma’s comments pissed the league off and it shot back saying they had isolated Malema from the organisation. Weirdly enough, young comrades, the right which Zuma exercised to say what he did is the same right that gives you the opportunity to express your views. Unfortunately for you, though, he’s the boss.

Read more: Politicsweb

The ANC said in a municipal election pledge it will remove poor people’s refuse for free. Minister of environmental affairs Edna Molewa published a draft plan and submitted it for public comment. Statistics SA claims that 43% of households in South Africa do not have a regular municipal waste collection service.

Read more: IOL

DA

According to the Mail and Guardian, the Public Protector is close to releasing a report about alleged irregularities in the Midvaal council regarding two DA council members. We reported on 5 May that the FF+ had, in 2009, expressed reservations about the DA-led council’s André Odendaal who is a sitting member of the council as well as its legal services provider.  According to the FF+, Odendaal has been a member for 30 years without the correct procedures having been followed. The Public Protector will also be investigating R6.8 million in trust money not accounted for by the municipality Another DA councillor and a property developer, Kobus Hoffman, has allegedly been suspended from his job for publically announcing his concerns regarding Odendaal, but the DA discovered he had obtained land in a way that contravened council regulations. A DA leader involved in the investigations said, “Personal issues spilled over to the political arena because the man at the centre of it, Odendaal, was the DA constituency chairman and Hoffman was a councillor. It’s small-town politics.”

Read more: Mail and Guardian

The ANC has accused the DA of covering up corruption in the Stellenbosch municipality, saying, “The DA’s MEC for local government in Western Cape, Anton Bredell and all the DA-aligned councillors of Stellenbosch should be investigated for their inaction to report the corruption in their midst to the police.” This is regarding the alleged forgery of a signature on a high court paper which resulted in the municipality moving from the hands of the ANC to the DA. The statement says Bredell has confirmed the signature was forged and the DA federal executive will decide whether to investigate. The ANC claims Bredell knew about this for two years, and that it is not up to the DA whether an investigation should take place when the law has been broken.

Read more: Politicsweb

Staying in Stellenbosch, the DA has accused the ANC of fielding a candidate who is a criminal, Jakobus André Davids, who was found guilty by the Specialised Community Court in Belville in April 2010. Davids fraudulently screwed the Stellenbosch municipality for more than R25 000.

Read more: Politicsweb

A man will appear in the Orlando maginstrate’s court today on charges of removing 179 DA election posters in Soweto which were found in his house. “This has been an issue in Soweto since the beginning of the election campaign, where many DA candidates’ posters have been removed from lamp posts,” said DA provincial legislature member Khume Ramulifho.

Read more: TimesLIVE

At a briefing in Braamfontein yesterday, DA mayoral candidate for Johannesburg, Mmusi Maimane, said he would like to see the day when people welcomed the rain instead of fearing the havoc summer storms tend to wreak. “People in their shacks start to worry about their roofs leaking, some are scared of the robots going out and everyone thinks about the potholes opening up.” Maimane said he no longer wanted rain to be a reminder of poor service delivery.

Lindiwe Mazibuko has re-released her statement from 17 March in which she listed criticisms of the ANC by one of its senior members, Trevor Manuel, as reasons not to vote for the ANC. This comes in light of someone distributing unbranded pamplets repeating this message – which the ANC is accusing the DA of distributing, and will be contesting it in court. 

Athol Trollip, the DA’s Eastern Cape leader and the party’s Parliamentary leader, has said ANC members will protest against their party by voting for the DA. We think it’s a great bout of wishful thinking, but Trollip did go on to speak more sense. He expects the DA to win four municipalities in the province and hoped they would come to rule PE in coalition. In a speech which he delivered in isiXhosa, Trollip was critical of people being forced to leave the province to find work: “That says a lot about the government in Eastern Cape. People should not have to leave Eastern Cape. There are many opportunities here to create jobs in tourism, agriculture and timber.”

Read more: TimesLIVE

DA mayoral candidate for the City of Joburg, Mmusi Maimane, was interviewed by TimesLIVE yesterday. In the interview Maimane said he thought long and hard before joining the DA, discussed his religious affiliations and the importance of family, and countered allegations of inexperience. The writer of the article claims, “With his private school accent and Soweto birthright, he straddles the divides and ticks the right boxes.”

Read more: TimesLIVE

Helen Zille visited Soshanguve in Tshwane yesterday and delivered a speech in which she said that it broke her heart that people lived in the conditions she saw. Zille used Cape Town as an example of good governance, saying “The truth is that the gap between the rich and the poor in Cape Town is smaller than any other city in South Africa. In fact, sadly for South Africa, Johannesburg is the most unequal city in the world. Pretoria is not far behind. This is not my opinion, it is the finding of a recent report by the United Nations.” And “Every household with an income of less than R3,000 a month gets free water, electricity and refuse removal.”

Read more: Politicsweb

IFP

The IFP is proudly boasting that 400 ANC supporters in the Umzimkhulu municipality will be changing their allegiances to the IFP. Considering the ANC snagged nearly 92% (72, 975 of 79 446) of the votes in the municipality in 2006, we’re not sure this is going to make a huge difference.

The IFP Youth Brigade will be campaigning door-to-door in Eastern Cape today. From 10:00 they will be in Ntsombo and from 14:30 in eNgcobo. Tomorrow they will be back in KZN in the Vulamehlo Municipality in Mfume Village from 09:00 and Mashiwase from 13:00.

The IFP Women’s Brigade will be having a prayer day in Nongoma – praying for the local government elections and a strong result for the IFP – at the multi-purpose hall. They will march to the hall from the centre of Nongoma at 09:00.

COPE

Yesterday we reported that Cope’s mayoral candidate for the City of Joburg was Preddy Mothopeng after a circus of a press conference the day before. This is incorrect as Mothopeng had merely announced he was the Cope candidate without actually having it cleared by the party, which Cope ‘s Phillip Dexter said in a statement yesterday. As things stand, we still don’t know who Cope’s candidate for the City of Joburg is.

Read more: Politicsweb

FF+

FF+ leader and depty minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries Piet Mulder campaigned in Bloemfontein yesterday and said the party’s election slogan “no service, no tax” was inspired by the new Consumer Protection Act. He claimed that municipalities did indeed fall under the aegis of the new Act. The party will be contesting 313 wards in Free State.

Jaco Mulder, the FF+ leader in Gauteng, has announced that key DA and ID councillors have defected to his party. He specified Christo Smith in Midvaal (previously DA), Craig Bennets in Ekurhuleni (DA), Tess (DA) and Brian Power (ID). “The FF Plus is at present the third largest opposition party in Gauteng following the DA and Cope. As a result of the infighting in Cope and due to the growing support for the FF Plus, the party could grow to become the second largest opposition party in Gauteng after the elections on 18 May.”

Read more: Politicsweb

The FF+ has revealed proof of a fraudulent tender in the municipality of Matlosana (Klerksdorp). The party has written to the mayor asking for suspension of the contract until a thorough investigation has been completed.

Read more: Politicsweb

NFP

Political analyst, Protas Madlala, has told East Coast Radio the IFP’s late (and disqualified) submission of its election lists in the Uzumbe district municipality could be a massive opportunity for Zanele Mgwaza-Msibi’s National Freedom Party, in spite of the ANC dominance of the wards in the area. The NFP broke away from the IFP in January.

Read more: East Coast Radio

Miscellaneous

News24 added an electoral map to its website. Very useful if you want to know the exact vote count and proportions for individual municipalities.

Read more: News24

Business Day has reviewed the call from IEC’s chief electoral officer that gender quotients in local government be mandated, after it came out that only 37% of candidates are women. The ANC was the strongest, gender-wise, with 43.8% of its candidates being female. The UDM was next with 36.9%, then the IFP with 33% and the DA with 31%.

Read more: Business Day

Dozens of religions leaders poured into the Standard Bank Arena yesterday to pray for free and fair elections. Also there were Gauteng Premier Nomvula Mokonyane and IEC chaiwoman Brigalia Bam.

The Media Online has uncovered some statistics showing how South Africa’s political parties have fared in the social media-scape. Turns out, only 1.3% of our comments have been positive. A cynical bunch? Not us.

Read more: The Media Online

Reuters claims a victory for the DA in the elections will be to finish less than 40% behind the ANC.

Read more: Reuters

Joburg Ratepayer’s Association head Lee Cahill has said no political parties other than Cope will sign an agreement committing themselves to answering to their constituencies. In all likelihood, Cope will tell us tomorrow they didn’t mean to sign it.

Read more: The New Age

Toilet Blitz

The ANC has admitted it knew about the open toilets and tried to enclose them last year, only managing 200. They didn’t tell the national leadership – provincial only. Zwelenzima Vavi wants the mayor fired. TimesLIVE expects the mayor to be fired. The DA is writing to the Public Protector about the fraudulent tender process and wants the SAHRC report on the toilets released.

Read more: News24, Politicsweb, Politicsweb, TimesLIVE,

The ANC handed over 1,000 toilets to residents in Midvaal yesterday. The DA claimed on Tuesday it had requested the toilets ages ago.

Photo: A woman walks past election posters of the African National Congress (ANC) and the official opposition party Democratic Alliance (DA) in Soweto May 9, 2011. Many voters believe the liberation African National Congress party has failed to make good on its promise to help the black poor who suffered racial oppression throughout much of the 20th century. Picture taken May 9. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko.