Things Are Getting Out Of Hand 2
Helen Zille certainly can predict things. Two days ageo she claimed that the ANC/ID would use the current city manager spat to make the city ungovernable and ask for provincial government to step in and lo and behold they do exactly that.
In a previous post I said they should rather try and sideline Mgoqi but DA Mal has shown that this is not really possible. So in short Zille should suck it up, hold her nose and pay Mgoqi’s exit clause. The DA needs to get down to some serious service delivery and they can’t afford to be bogged down in petty party fighting. There’s a taxi war raising it’s ugly head again (and let’s not forget those rat tailed maggots) that needs seeing to.
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Mitchells Plain By-election may tip balance in DA’s favour
There may be a slight shift in the balance of power in Cape Town towards the Democratic Alliance (DA) in the near future. Sheval Arendse, one of the Independent Democrat (ID) councillors for Mitchells Plain has resigned his seat. He’ll probably contest the seat again but this time as a DA candidate. He won it in the previous election by a mere 66 votes but may actually do considerably better this time around for the DA, especially seeing how Patricia has recently destroyed the ID’s credibility after she went against her word and allied herself with the ANC.
A few thoughts.
Sheval shows guts to resign to fight another election, especially for another party. He had a secure seat for five years so it’s doubly courageous to want to fight an election so soon. On the other hand, it isn’t a question of whether the DA will win the seat, but rather by how much.
As a result this by-election could be a bellwether of the ID’s fortunes to come, following their bizarre behaviour after the March election. Indeed, they may be badly hurt if events play out they appear likely to.
The stability of the DA-led multi-party government of Cape Town itself would be improved in the interim as the opposition vote is weakened by one vote while its strength will be further improved if the DA actually takes this seat. The DA would no longer have to rely on the Pan Africanist Congress’ neutrality, which seems increasingly shaky following the Municipal Manager vote.
The three other ID ward councillors (not to mention their PR list councillors), who are waiting for the floor-crossing window next year, will be nervously watching this by-election. If the DA does well, we may expect further ID ward councillor resignations or defections.
Finally, and most tellingly, it will be interesting to see if the African National Congress (ANC) fights this ward. If it were not for the ID, the ANC would definitely contest all wards in Mitchells Plain but the existence of the ID in a tight by-election makes their decision extremely difficult.
If they do contest the ward they could split the vote, and that will further damage the ID’s chances of taking the seat. If they do not contest the ward, they’ll be sending a message that they stood aside to allow the ID to fight. That would be an electoral gift to the DA’s campaign, demonstrating clearly to voters that the ANC and ID are in alliance, and one and the same.
The ANC’s campaign manager must be struggling with that decision. However, if I was the ANC’s campaign manager, I would choose to fight the ward. In the long run, the ANC only has its credibility to lose, if they appear deferential to the ID flash-in-the-pan.
Overall, it’s important to stress how badly the ID split the non-ANC vote in Cape Town. For example, all the Atlantis ward seats went to the ANC on March 1st. However the ID and DA votes combined handsomely outnumbered the ANC votes in Atlantis. Were it not for the ID, the DA could actually functionally govern the city with one or two other parties, and not via this shaky coalition. The ID has functioned as nothing more than a wrecker, both on election day and in every manoeuvre it has used since the election. This may be a chance to rectify the problems the ID created.
Mal Morrow
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I looked at the election results from the IEC on Ward 82 in Mitchell’s Plain and the ID only won the seat with 39% of the vote against 37.5% for the DA, a margin of only 150 votes out of 6,000 cast. The ANC on the other hand received only 14.5% of the vote. An adjacent Ward 79, also in Mitchell’s Plain showed the ID winning by only 66 votes: 40% for ID, 39% for DA and just 16.5% for the ANC. In the third ward in Ottery a similar scenario was played out with the ANC getting only 12% of the vote.
My own view about the upcoming by-election in June is that the DA will probably win it by a confortable landslide even it the ANC manages to pick up some votes from the ID as well as smaller parties such as the AMP and UDM. The DA on the other hand will pick up the bulk of the ID’s votes that would diminish the ID’s standing in the by-election.
My guess is that the DA will win comfortably with 55%, the ANC with about 25%, the ID with about 10% and the remaining 10% going to other parties. Thus a landslide for the DA.
Kevin Hughes
Latest news from the SABC reports that the leaders of the Africa Muslim Party (AMP) and the United Democratic Movement (UDM) are fully supportive of Helen Zille’s multiparty government in Cape Town.