South Africa

South Africa

LGE2016 counting day wrap: A wave of blue in the Western Cape

LGE2016 counting day wrap: A wave of blue in the Western Cape

A blue wave washed over the Western Cape. The DA not only boosted its standing in the Cape Town metro, but swept the ANC out of office in Beaufort West, the Karoo economic hub the ANC had won outright last time round, and from six councils it governed in various coalition arrangements. There will be some coalition horse-trading in eight councils where there was no outright winner, and it could get messy. Thursday’s results of the 2016 local government elections showed the Western Cape municipalities have concentrated the national trend that saw the ANC significantly drop below 62% it previously held nationally - something which for the ANC should set off some alarm bells. By MARIANNE MERTEN.

DA Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille got her hoped-for increased support from the 60.92% scored in the 2011 municipal poll. And on Friday morning 5 August, there’s a victory mini-rally on the Albert Luthuli Plaza outside the council head office, the Civic Centre.

“The only way we could have grown… is by getting the support from blacks, whites, coloured and Indian people and so the DA has broken out of its traditional base,” said returning Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille on Thursday evening at the closing media briefing at the Western Cape Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) results centre. The election manifesto would now be turned into the integrated development plan for the city, she promised.

With all votes outside Cape Town officially declared, and only 100 voting stations in the metro itself outstanding by late Thursday evening, it was clear the DA had made a clean sweep in Cape Town, and across the Western Cape. The DA polled at 63.75% against the ANC’s 25.47%, taking outright 17 of the 24 local councils to the ANC’s nil. The Economic Freedom Fighters had gained 2.67%, representing a total of 12 council seats, across the province.

Also-ran in the Cape Town mayoral contest, the ANC’s Xolani Sotashe, remained determinedly positive. The ANC had retained its “base wards”, party jargon for its traditional strongholds in townships, he told Daily Maverick, and reclaimed a ward the DA had won in the 2011 municipal poll.

“We ran a very, very positive campaign. Our message was simple and clear. And the improvement (in polling support) we see is because of that,” said Sotashe, adding the party stayed away from the “fear factor” the DA touted – that the city would descend into chaos if the ANC governed. “From the beginning, we were fighting a very well resourced machinery. We too the fight to their (DA’s) doorstop and they felt it.”

But it is understood the Western Cape ANC’s hands were tied from the start, and not only in Cape Town, by a shoestring budget of just a few million Rands for the whole province. Many an eyebrow were raised on voting day amid when it became clear the ANC had not fielded councillor candidate, and thus given away the contest, in several wards in the city bowl areas like the Bo-Kaap and Tamboerskloof.

Still the ANC provincial executive meets on Friday, and no doubt the 2016 local government election results will be on the agenda.

Western Cape ANC secretary Faiz Jacobs told Daily Maverick there would be a “comprehensive assessment” of the results. “It (the result) requires for us to do introspection, go back to the drawing board… We take note of the concerns, especially from our base wards.”

While the Cape Town metro went to the DA (again), and so did 17 local councils, including Stellenbosch, Drakenstein (Paarl) and George. But there will be coalition negotiations in dorpies like Swellendam, Laignsburg, the hamlet of Prince Albert, Witzenberg (Ceres), Hessequa (Riversdale), Kannaland, where the Independent Civic Association of South Africa (Icosa) lost outright control but may still stay in control in with the ANC, and Bitou (Plettenberg Bay).

However, the DA, which had been hopeful to clinch Beaufort West outright on Thursday morning, must look for a partner to make up the less than one percentage point it needs to go over 50%. That could well be the Karoo Democratic Force (KDF), which scored 5.1%, understood to have been set up after the ANC there did not accommodate certain interests. In Plettenberg Bay, a disenchanted ANC councillor candidate who stood as independent may just give the DA the majority it needs to govern in a coalition. In Hesseqa a coalition between the DA and Freedom Front Plus, which is not opposed to such an arrangement. The same may apply in Swellendam.

The most serious incident in the Western Cape was a stabbing with a key between two councillor candidates in Grabouw. The provincial IEC is the only one countrywide to have a conflict resolution team, which mediates at grassroots to prevent tensions spilling over.

Western Cape IEC boss Courtney Sampson paid tribute to them Thursday evening, and also the inter-religious observer team chaired by Cape Town Anglican Archbishop Thabo Makgoba. “It’s been an interesting ride. No election is every perfect.”

And Sampson reminded political parties, and everyone else, it was time to co-operate “to address the serious gap between wealth an poverty”. If this local government election had shown anything, it was the “extreme discontent by people in our communities” meant any community living in dire socio-economic conditions was a potential hotspot.

“The gap between wealth and poverty is not going to be sustainable for any of us in the country,” said Sampson. DM

Photo: The DA’s Phumzile van Damme and James Selfe embrace at the IEC’s national results centre as party leader Mmusi Maimane claims victory in Nelson Mandela Bay. (Greg Nicolson)

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