In Saron, an ANC-ruled town, the mayor and his deputy are fighting for their political lives
Marianne Merten
Most mornings a handful of protestors converge on the modest white municipal building next to the post office in Saron, a quiet hamlet at the foot of the Swartruggens Mountains in the Western Cape.
They are there to show solidarity for their mayor, 34-year-old high school teacher Dan Kotze, who has fallen out of favour, after six years in office, with provincial African National Congress leaders. He was expelled from the party last month, along with his deputy, for “ill discipline”.
Few would expect to find a political hotbed in an isolated village like Saron, population 7E500.
But Saron’s political volatility could be seen even as far back as 1994, when the new ANC-aligned transitional council fought its first political fight against the board of management that had ruled the former Coloured Trust land on behalf of the province. One man died of a heart attack watching riot police disperse protestors against the old guard’s refusal to give way.
In 1998 the little ANC town won a Cape High Court battle against the New National Party local government MEC after provincial grants had been withheld for years. It is the only court battle in the NNP-dominated province which the ANC has won. Many these days bitterly point out that their success in the battle was achieved without any help from the party.
Since the funds were released, the town has changed. Each of the modest homes along bougainvillea-shaded gravel roads now has running water at all times, unlike previous summers when water supplies simply dried up. The night-soil bucket system is about to be abandoned as the last houses are being linked to a sewerage system.
Now there are street-lights and lighting at sports fields. More than 200 of the 600 planned low-cost houses are built. Saron also repaid its councillors and municipal workers their allowances and wages, which had been suspended for the period – almost four years – the provincial administration had withheld the grants.
A battered welcome sign and cows grazing along the only tar road greet lost travellers. The village does not exist on older maps.
Yet Saron was one of the first ANC rural strongholds and critical in extending party support to nearby towns like Porterville, Picketberg, Gouda and Tulbagh. “We are not plastic ANC members,” says the chair of the local ANC-affiliated residents’ association, Willem Benjamin. Now there is a feeling of betrayal.
Since last August, the mayor has fought for his political life under threat not from the community, but provincial leaders.
He and his deputy, Hubert Lesch, were suspended in December and later expelled. An ANC disciplinary hearing in March found them guilty of failing to nominate as mayor fellow councillor Johan Witbooi, who had been handpicked at a closed-door meeting of the provincial ANC deployment committee in September. Lesch was supposed to remain as deputy.
Members of the Saron ANC branch and residents’ association say they are baffled about the choice; no one asked them for their views. They say the decision contravenes the party’s own deployment policy, which provides for consultation and appeals before a final decision.
“The community still regard Dan Kotze as mayor,” Benjamin says. “We should have a say who should be mayor.”
The town’s Percy Bilton Old Age Club has written a letter of support. Hundreds of residents have signed a petition to keep Kotze.
For the time being the smartly dressed Kotze and the down-to-earth Lesch arrive every day at the municipal office. Legal opinion obtained by the town clerk means that until their appeal against the expulsion is finalised, they stay put.
Kotze is reluctant to talk because of the pending appeal. “I am honest. I believe in honesty, transparency and accountability.”
The intervention by senior provincial ANC officials is on many minds.
“It’s victimisation because his is not the [official] line of thinking,” says one of the little town’s notables, who did not want to be named for fear of intimidation. “They don’t want him to ask the kind of questions he is asking.”
Since the start of the year ANC heavyweights have been sent into the rural hinterlands across the country to bring the rank and file into line ahead of the November local government elections. In the case of Saron, much of the behind-the-scenes, almost Machiavellian, politicking unfolds like a bad political thriller.
Although Kotze was prepared to step down, the ANC-aligned Saron Residents’ Association and others were not interested in such a move. Council meetings were disrupted. Senior provincial ANC officials from Cape Town rushed to intervene.
The residents’ association even met ANC national chair Mosiua Lekota at Cape Town’s Ysterplaat airport to inform him of “a malicious vendetta” by provincial officials. But Western Cape ANC secretary Mcebisi Skwatsha declined to comment, except to say they just did their job to ensure the party runs smoothly.
Over the past few weeks several councillors have been asked by key provincial ANC officials whether they want to become mayor. All turned down the offer.
The ANC’s preferred candidate seems to have a shady political history. Apparently there is proof Witbooi and another councillor worked for the United Democratic Movement ahead of the June 2 elections. NNP members regularly visit him at home. And his track record of attending council meetings is shaky: he missed 14 of 25 gatherings.
When the local ANC branch called Witbooi to a disciplinary hearing in October, provincial party leaders decided to disband the branch, leaving almost 300 members without proper structures.
In another twist, last week Benjamin won the local by-election.
The councillor whose seat was up for election had resigned three years ago. Saron officials chuckle quietly about the provincial ANC members who came to town to lend a hand to the independent candidate who – until recently – was an NNP member.
Saron’s disillusionment is growing. It is echoed elsewhere in the area.
Late last year four ANC councillors resigned from the ANC-dominated Tulbagh council, effectively giving it to the NNP. “It was pure frustration,” says former councillor Ben Oliphant. “I don’t actually want to talk about it. They just neglected us.”
The issue of Saron is now before the national disciplinary hearing committee, chaired by Minister of Education Kader Asmal.
And in the tiny hamlet, people are seriously thinking where they should put their cross on the municipal ballot in November.