South Africa’s young democracy has a big moment on Wednesday when 45 Local Government by-elections will be held. The bulk of them (39) are because of the fraud-related dissolution of the Ditsobotla local municipality’s council – the area around Lichtenburg in the NW province – where just under 31 000 people voted in November last year.
Ditsobotla will be a huge test for the ANC, which scraped home with 52% of the votes a year ago. The EFF and DA came in at around 15% each, Independents got 9% and the FF+ 4%. The trend in by-elections, and circumstances around the council dissolution suggests the ANC will fall well below 50%.
So it’s no surprise to see opposition parties throwing their big guns into the contest with both DA leader John Steenhuisen and Federal Chair Helen Zille on the ground supporting a catchy campaign poster (above) promoting the party’s prospectus.
Zille tweeted about her experiences during three days of campaigning starting off by emphasizing “how lucky we are to have lived under a DA government for so long in the Western Cape.” Reactions to the Zille tweet thread are instructive.
Most are supportive, while critics are long on emotion, short on facts and come primarily from outsiders. Wednesday’s vote is likely to show us what the country might expect in the potentially watershed National Election just over a year away. I’ve got a feeling the nation will be pleasantly surprised by those Julius Malema dismisses as “voting cattle”.
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Action SA’s founder won’t hear any mitigating evidence in favour of SA’s beleaguered president – for him the events at Phala Phala are simply a reflection of a leader who needs to be put out to pasture. In this powerful interview with Alec Hogg of BizNews, businessman-turned-politician Herman Mashaba makes the case for ejecting both the ANC and its leader and explains why he ignores labels of “EFF lover” and “House Nigger” slung at him by opponents. There’s good news, too, about Action SA’s rapid expansion in rural areas and normalising of its relationship with the Democratic Alliance.
