Politics.za

According to electoral law Cape Town is supposed to have a municipal council convened one week after elections results are officially announced. Well it’s been a week and still we’re wating (with baited breath I might add) for who will be the mayor.

The ID seem to have thrown their hands in the air and told the ANC and DA to choose a mayor, which would mean Helen Zille would be in the top slot. Perhaps even the ID decided Simon Grindrod was just a tad inexperienced for the job.

Meanwhile here’s a juicy morsel left dangling at the end of the article:

And ID leader Patricia de Lille is facing an internal revolt in the Southern Cape.

Do tell, do tell. Considering the number of municicpalities in the Western Cape that are split between the DA and ANC with the ID in the middle, this might shift the balance in some areas.

I’m shocked, shocked, that a coalition comprising the PAC, FF+, ACDP and the AMP fell apart. Shocked I tell you.

Oh well back to the drawing board.

FF+ thanks its Soweto support base

For those of you not in the SA political know, let’s just say that the FF+ is pretty much a bunch of white Afrikaner (ex?)nationalists.

The stranger thing is that of the 787 votes the FF+ got in Soweto, 430 were ward votes which implies that the FF+ actually had a ward candidate running for that area.

It seems despite the congratulatory backpats these past elections might not have been the results the DA was hoping for. Compare the following results in the Western Cape between the 2000 and 2006 local elections

Basically everyone stayed steady except for the DA who lost 11% seemingly straight to the ID. Granted in 2000 the DA was merged with the NNP whose councillors then crossed over to the ANC (probably only to find themselves off the ANC electoral list this year… suckers). But still, that’s a 10% knock in your strongest province. This coupled with the things highlighted in the comments section of this thread over at Someamongus’ South Africa blog highlight the fact that the DA is treading water at the moment.

They desperately need a prominent municipality (like Cape Town) to prove to voters that they are capable of governing effectively and can do a better job than the ANC. Otherwise ANC voters will refuse to look at them preferring to make their grievances known via non-election means such as the township demonstrations over delivery that have come to the fore in the past few months.

So for the sake of having a decent opposition let’s hope that Tony’s got a game plan.

Update: Laurence at Commentary discusses the DA malaise in more detail.

Update: DA insider DA Mal posts a response.

Despite Eskom’s best efforts I will not be denied internet access! Yeeaarrrgh!!! Sorry. Had a brief Howard Dean moment there… On to the elections in Cape Town.

According to the latest results, each party received the following percentage of the vote and the number of seats on the council out of 210.

I don’t think the DA will be able to form a coalition with the minority parties , particularly as the ACDP and the AMP have ideologies that are waaaay on the other side of the spectrum than the DA. But… this is the same party that merged with the NNP at one time so who knows.

What is likely, at least what I hope is likely, is an ‘unoffical coalition’. The ID is adamant that there will be no coalition with the DA or the ANC and they want to get rid of the executive mayoral committee that the ANC introduced, which also happens to be what the DA wants as well. I think on most issues the DA and ID will probably be voting off the same ideological page.

Another interesting thing is that if the executive mayoral committee is scrapped the influence of the mayor will be greatly diminished. So it doesn’t seem too bad if Simon Grindrod is made mayor as long as all he does is smile and wave nicely during parades. Hopefully there will be some negotiation allowing Helen Zille to have some actual political clout in the council because she really is an effective and seasoned politician and it would be a terrible shame if she went to waste as nothing more than a councillor.

The parties have seven days to get a working council together.

For those of you who want to spend the rest of the night hitting the ‘Refresh’ button the IEC has their elections results page up!

Update: Still no results for Cape Town Metropole.

My voting station was pretty empty at 10:30 this morning, only about 10 people in the queue. Hopefully it will have picked up since then. Results are expected sometime between midnight and 6am.

So far everything seems to have gone off well.

It seems Minister of Public Enterprise Alec Erwin (who is in charge of all parastatals like our beloved Eskom) is not going to rule out the possibility of intentional sabotage in the continued rolling blackouts that are affecting the Western Cape. Now the more cynical of you reading this blog might take this with a kilogram or two of salt, after all there is an election tomorrow and the ANC in the Western Cape is competing in it’s closest race (Cape Town) in the region. No doubt Alec would love to plant that tired old canard of ‘Well… who would really benefit from blackouts? Certainly not the ANC!’ in voters heads.

When it comes to looking at a situation I tend to follow a few simple rules, and one of the most prominent is ‘never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to stupidity’. Where Alec Erwin sees Hellen Zille in ninja garb rapelling down the side of Koeberg’s reactor housing and snapping the necks of innocent security guards, I see growth in the economy without any growth in the infrastructure to support that growing economy (are you listening Telkom, because I have a feeling this applies to you as well) and the shortsightedness (whether because of greed, laziness or just ignorace) that has not put any long term solutions in place.

But the fact remains, and people should not forget this, is that even if there is some sabotage (and I seriously doubt this) then the administration at Koeberg are still negligent in allowing it to happen. Stupidity or malice… it’s still the fault of Eskom and the government departments who oversee it.

Shut up! I’m talking to the big boss, not you.

God bless you Queen Mahlangu. That’s the way to talk to a politician!

And from now on that’s my new nickname for Thabo Mbeki – Big Boss (although I hear he likes to be called ‘The Chief’ on occasion).

The ACDP is desperately trying to get back on the electoral list in Cape Town after an administrative snafu (on their part I should add) meant they would not be allowed to contest the elections in the region.

I do like the veiled threats though, so forgiving:

If you don’t want to hear this (appeal), our only option is to seek an interdict throughout the country where there has been non-compliance with this statutory decision and it will disrupt the elections.

Update: The ACDP will be allowed to contest the elections in Cape Town.