Politics.za

When I’m deciding on who to vote for (or whether to vot at all) I look at all the latest newspaper and magazines and try and find a political party or candidate who best matches my ideological viewpoint.

Some people look a bit further back.

Who knew Christians could be such free marketeers though…

In what may be a first for the SA blogosphere, Someamongus has managed to score an interview with the DA’s Chairman Joe Seremane discussing the upcoming local elections. Nice job!

The Sunday Times is reporting that the ANC can expect to lose ground in at least six major municipalitics come the local elections on the first of March.

Could this be a herald that identity politics is on the way out? Well… maybe… maybe not. As much as voters in some areas are disappointed with service delivery by the ANC I don’t see all of them switching alleigance and voting for the DA/IFP/ID.

Rather we may see the rise of ‘punishment voting’ where voters see the act of not voting as being a vote against the ANC (which technically it is, if the opposition can keep their numbers constant or rising compared to previous elections). This can lead to some wild swings in voting patterns in the short term (say between local and national elections) as a party will find it’s voters stay away from the polls when they believe the ruling party to be inefficient, rather than a longer term trend of voters deciding to vote for a different party on ideological grounds.

Here’s an interesting tidbit from the M&G. It seems the ANC will not announce their mayoral candidates until after the election. I was wondering about this as I was drinving through the leafy suburbs of Newlands as Helen Zille (DA) and Whatsisface Grindrod (ID) gazed down on me from their lamp post perches and noticed a distinct lack of our current mayor, Nomaindia Mfeketo.

Could this be part of Thabo Mbeki’s crusade to rid the ANC ranks of undesirables? Is he planning a complete blindside on his members come the 2nd of March? If I was an ANC councillor in a hotly contested area (like Cape Town) I’d be starting to worry just a bit especially as according to the IEC parties can rejigger their lists after elections.

When you vote for a candidate in an election, especially for a candidate you do not know as we do here in SA’s proportional representation system, you expect them to not be idiots. Unfortunately the IEC has had to take out the clue-by-four and seperate the wheat from the chaff in the local elections by disqualifying nearly a thousand candidates because they are not registered voters.

I agree with their move. People who don’t care enough to participate in the democratic process shouldn’t get to be the ones who benefit from it.

You know I’m all for elections, but why does it have to bring out the worst in people?

SALGA is busy wringing it’s hands in worry that voter apathy will ruin the upcoming local elections. Although I’m wondering perhaps they’re more afraid of ANC voter apathy? After all right across SA townships are filled with angry people demanding service delivery:

We will continue to riot until the government has heeded to our demands. They have asked us to vote for them which we have done, yet they are refusing to fulfil their side of the bargain

No need to riot. Merely rock up at a voting station on March 1st with that anger intact and remember what you said before you put your cross down.

I have the slightest feeling that if the scores of township rioters can put as much effort into getting people to vote as they do blocking commuters going to work, we might be seeing a glimpse of the end of “name” politics (i.e. voting for the ANC merely because they’re the ANC) that have dominated SA for the last 10 years.

The ANC is finding that drawing up electoral lists is harder than expected. Thabo Mbeki has stated that he intends to use these local elections to rid council of corruption and ‘populists’ but he’s going to find that hard to do when local ANC branches submit lists full of the people he is trying to get rid of. I don’t think that the national ANC structure can override to much of the choices of the local ANC wards without straining tensions in the ANC even further. Observe the ruckus going down in KZN where no ANC councillor is prepared to give up their R17 000 a month salary (39 000(!!) if you’re on the executive committee) without a fight.

To me it seems Mbeki has got two choices. He can walk a tightrope trying to find balance within the ANC and make as many people (including the voting public) as happy as possible. Or he can go in with a hammer and smash everything to the ground and try and rebuild it again. Which is what I suspect may happen. It’s been long suspected that Mbeki is trying to turn the ANC into a modern ‘European’ style political party and these local elections might just be the opportunity for him to try to do that. But there’s going to be a lot of ganshing of teeth from within the ANC along the way.

Who the heck is the ID fielding for Mayor of Cape Town?

No political experience but he is the manager of the Commodore Hotel at the V & A Waterfront? Well if Cape Town is under siege by rampaging German tourists (Doesn’t that happen every summer anyway? I kid, I kid. We love you German tourists.) pissed off because their room doesn’t have a view of the ocean we’ll know who to call…

Jony over at The Fishbowl was the first to notice that Thabo Mbeki is getting ready to rid the ANC electoral lists of “populists” ahead of the March local elections, in favour candidates with ‘necessary skills’.

This is not going to help ease tensions in the tri-partite alliance at all.