Residents of the six rural towns will vote again on 19 June in KwaZulu-Natal. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
Residents of six KwaZulu-Natal municipalities will return to the polls within weeks of the 29 May national and provincial vote for a series of crucial by-elections that were postponed by the province’s cooperative governance MEC, Bongiwe Sithole-Moloi.
Earlier this month Sithole-Moloi went to the Pietermaritzburg high court to secure permission to postpone the by-elections in Umvoti, Nongoma, Umzumbe, Mthonjaneni, uPhongolo and Newcastle local municipalities for 19 June.
The vacancies were created by the deaths of councillors or resignations. In the case of Umzumbe, six ANC councillors defect to the breakaway Umkhonto weSizwe party led by Jacob Zuma.
All of the six are hung councils, and the by-elections have the potential to shift the balance of power in all except Newcastle, where the coalition between the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), the Democratic Alliance (DA) and other parties holds a significant majority in the 67 seat chamber.
The ANC has had a bad run in the by-elections held in the province since the November 2021 municipal poll, losing more than 10 wards to the DA-IFP coalition during 2023 and earlier this year.
Sithole-Moloi’s decision to postpone the by-elections has been seen as an attempt to stave off further potentially embarrassing losses on the eve of the national and provincial vote.
The court granted an order postponing the by-elections until 19 June but instructed Sithole-Moloi to pay the legal costs of the Mthonjaneni local municipality, which had opposed the application.
It did so because Sithole-Moloi had admitted in her papers that she had been advised by the Electoral Commission of South Africa that she did not have the powers to postpone the by-elections and that she had failed in her duty to call by-elections in the councils within the legally prescribed period of 90 days.
Sithole-Moloi had argued that allowing the by-elections to go ahead before the national and provincial poll would not deliver a fair result.
In court papers she said her department lacked the capacity to oversee the by-elections in conjunction with the preparations for the national and provincial poll.
She said that having to fight by-elections and the national and provincial polls at the same time would “compromise” the smaller parties, which did not have the resources to do this.
Delaying the by-elections would prevent them from being “overshadowed” by the 29 May poll, Sithole-Moloi said.
The DA has subsequently called for the removal of Sithole-Moloi from office over the postponements. The party’s member of the KwaZulu-Natal legislature, Martin Meyer, said she had failed to carry out her duties in terms of the Municipal Structures Act.
“In the event that an MEC acts unconstitutionally, it is against his or her oath of office,” Meyer said. “The court has upheld that Sithole-Moloi did so. This is a case for immediate dismissal.”
Sithole-Moloi’s spokesperson, Siboniso Mngadi, said the department “acknowledges” the court order and would comply with it and implement it as instructed.