Hung councils order of the day in Western Cape

CAPE TOWN - As the vote counting continued on Tuesday, the Western Cape figures reflected a number of hung municipalities, including Beaufort West, Cape Agulhas, Cederberg, Kannaland, Knysna, Laingsburg, Langeberg, Oudtshoorn, Prince Albert, Saldanha Bay, Theewaterskloof and Witzenberg.

Three municipalities continue to be led by the DA - Bergriver, Hessequa and Swartland.

The DA has taken the lead by claiming 198 seats, of which 153 are wards, and 45 proportional representative (PR) seats.

The party was also leading in the City of Cape Town. Figures indicate that the provincial ANC scored 100 seats, comprising 69 wards and 31 councils.

The Patriotic Alliance was also high up on the leader board by 5pm on Tuesday with 18 seats across three wards, while GOOD Party and VF Plus both had 14 PR seats.

The EFF had received 7 PR seats in the province by 5pm. Icosa was, meanwhile, leading the Kannaland municipality with 45% of votes.

UWC political analyst Keith Gottschalk noted DA losses to the ANC as significant.

“The most significant swing so far is Oudtshoorn, swinging from the DA to the ANC. I do not yet have details of other municipalities in our province,” he said.

CPUT political analyst Dr Kuhle Zwakala said the results indicated a few metros would be governed through coalitions.

“Even though only a third of the votes had been counted by early afternoon (Tuesday), we should not expect any drastic changes or variance towards counting completion. The results trajectory indicates that 3 or even 4 metros will be governed through coalitions. What was interesting in the Cape Town metro is that political/voting apathy seemed to be characterised by demographic factors. Low voter turnout was apparent in townships, whereas white voters came out in numbers in suburban areas. History tells us that low voter turnout is a disadvantage to the ANC, which largely attracts the black vote.”

In response to what voter trends were suggesting, policy analyst Nkosikhulule Nyembezi said the emerging picture of hung municipalities suggest the political landscape is holding intact as far as voters were intent on doing away with dominant political parties.

“Hopefully, small parties and independent candidates will not allow themselves to be used by big parties as pawns in their quest for control of the municipal councils. All political parties will do well by putting aside narrow political interests and representing all the people in their municipalities. The emerging picture of hung municipalities also suggests that we are likely to see hotly-contested by-elections in the next five years, as each by-election will hold a potential to swing the control of a municipality,” Nyembezi said.

The low turnout remained a serious cause for concern, as “this abstinence mentality is a serious threat to our democracy. Should it take hold, it will take many years to reverse,” he said.

DA interim leader in the province Albert Fritz said they were happy with the results, adding that they had also received confirmation that two more municipalities had been confirmed for the party.

“We are elated at the fact that we have now won five municipalities, namely Bergriver, Swartland, Hessequa, Mossel Bay and Overstrand. Mossel Bay is one of our big municipalities with economic powers, and it's always a positive story with the wins,” said Fritz.

“On the results of other municipalities, we will be waiting with our national counterparts and then discuss exactly what we are going to do as a way forward, and decide if we want to remain in opposition or go into government,” he added.

ANC spokesperson Sifiso Mtsweni, however, said the DA was losing its “stronghold” over the Western Cape.

“The counting is not done, but so far we are having a positive outcome in many municipalities. In Knysna, we won six wards out of 11; we have gained three wards compared to our 2016 results, and we took the former DA stronghold of Hornlee. At best we are happy our campaign so far demonstrated the DA’s grip on the Western Cape has collapsed. Outside of support growing for the ANC, people are also putting their trust in smaller parties, with GOOD winning quite a few wards, the Patriotic Alliance also putting up a good show and the VF Plus has really taken a lot of the white vote from the DA,” Mtsweni said.

GOOD Party mayoral candidate Brett Herron said: “We are encouraged as the party has shown growth; however, the low voter turnout is very worrying for our democracy. It shows that citizens have lost their confidence or interest in participating. We have to all reflect on that and why that fallout has happened. In Cape Town I was expecting it due to the weather conditions, but we saw in parts of the country where the weather was sunny, the voter turnout was very low, so we have a voter turnout problem in South Africa. We have to analyse why that is, and all of us have to work harder on voter participation,” said Herron.

Icosa provincial chairperson Benjamin Marsala said the results showed “a sign of growth” for their party.

“It is very good and encouraging for us as we worked very hard, especially with the councils that we won in Kannaland. It motivates us to work even harder. It has been a definite growth for the party and it shows that Icosa is starting to strengthen its muscl,e and that the leadership of Icosa are very hard-working, and the citizens have shown that they trust us,” said Marsala.

The EFF maintained that they remained positive and they were already making plans for the 2024 general elections.

“As a province we are still analysing as the numbers are still trickling in. We are very much positive our numbers are growing in the province; it's just a matter of time until we know by how many additional councillors. Our people want jobs, they want land. An increase or not in numbers won't deter us from that,” said provincial EFF spokesperson Wandile Kasibe.

Cape Times