Elections: Southern Cape stable but interesting

SOUTHERN CAPE NEWS - The blue wave of the DA that started when the election results of the City of Cape Town became known, swept upcountry gaining momentum as South Africans realised that for the first time since 1994, there was a real possibility for an opposition party to take control of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality.

While counting still continues in a handful of wards, it seems that the DA will be the largest party in this Metro, but it may not break the 50% barrier. This means they will have to talk to other opposition parties in the hope of forming a workable coalition.

By late yesterday evening, Thursday 4 August, the wave had all but turned into a tsunami as both the City of Tshwane and, to a lesser extent Johannesburg, also came within reach of the DA. Although the DA is holding its own at around 50% of the votes counted in both Tshwane and Johannesburg, this percentage could swing away from the DA as the wards that still have to be counted are largely in the townships.

With a good chance of political stability across the Western Cape, all eyes will turn to the Northern provinces where the EFF will take over the mantle of kingmaker between the ANC and the DA in municipalities where coalitions must be formed.

The DA also retained the highly contested Midvaal Municipality, the only DA-led Council in Gauteng since the last local government elections in 2011.

In the Western Cape the DA will govern alone in 15 of the 25 municipalities and will also be in control of 5 district municipalities in the province.

The IEC released the Proportional Representative (PR) councillor’s seat allocation late last night, and the Southern Cape makes for some very interesting reading.

Although the George Council will have 9 parties the DA’s comfortable margin of 29 seats against the ANC’s 16, this should lead to an era of stability as the PBI’s 2 and 1 each from the EFF, Icosa, FF Plus, ACDP, AIP and the SA Civics will not be enough to challenge the ruling party.

The beleaguered Oudtshoorn Municipality will now be governed by the DA that is firmly in control with 14 seats, while the combined opposition could only muster 11 seats (ANC 7, ICOSA 2, EFF 1 and SA Religious Civics 1).

With 17 DA seats in Mossel Bay, the DA will be able to govern the town alone as the ANC has 7 seats with one each for Icosa, FF Plus and the ACDP.

There are four hung council in the Southern Cape with a further three in the rest of the province. A hung council means that no single party has achieved 50% of the vote, which will allow them to govern on their own. In Kannaland, Icosa with 3 councillors is expected to govern with the 2 councillors from the ANC with the DA (2) being in opposition.

Bitou can go either way as the DA and ANC each have 6 councillors and the Active United Front with one, seat will be the kingmaker. The same applies in Hessequa where the DA and the ANC both have 6 councillors, but here the FF Plus will have the casting vote as to who must govern.

In Prince Albert the DA is the biggest party with 3 councillors, but an agreement between the ANC (2) and the Karoo Gemeenskap Party (2) will more than likely control the municipality.

The final PR breakdown figures for Knysna are not available yet.

ARTICLE & PHOTO: MYRON RABINOWITZ, GEORGE HERALD JOURNALIST

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