The ANC’s East Rand mayoral nominee, Bavumile Vilakazi, appears to have been one of the party’s few active candidates in Gauteng. The former MDM foot soldier has spent the past month addressing meetings, listening to problems and using his charisma to win over voters.
In Thokoza, former ANC activists have formed the Displacees Ratepayers’ Association to take on the ruling party. They have been talking of possible alliances with anti-ANC groupings a stance that could lead them to the DA’s candidate for the region, Eddie Taylor.
Taylor, a businessman-turned-politician, will have a tough time wresting this traditional ANC stronghold. The 58-year-old DA hopeful who claims to have been driven to active and liberal politics by apartheid can also rely on his interaction with black communities where he has been known for self-sufficiency schemes, including business and a candle-making enterprise in Thembisa and Dukathole respectively.
Pretoria is likely to be a close race. According to Markinor’s latest poll, the ANC only just leads the DA at 37% compared with 35%. The ANC’s candidate, Deputy Minister of Education Smangaliso Mkhatshwa, is pitched against the DA’s Carl Worth, who was formerly with the Freedom Front.
According to Markinor, the ANC in the East Rand is out in front with 40%, compared with the DA’s 29%, while in the Vaal the ruling party is storming ahead with 65%, versus the DA’s 4%
Mpumalanga
Election time in Mpumalanga has always been an excuse for a party at taxpayers’ expense of course.
Municipalities in the province are defying cost-curtailment measures and are digging into their budgets for basic services to splurge on “farewell” parties for their mayors and other elected leaders.
The average voter is not invited and in many instances only ruling ANC dignitaries are on the guest lists.
Organisers are also coy to admit that virtually every mayor being honoured by a “farewell” party is guaranteed of re-election because Mpumalanga is still an ANC stronghold with no real broad-based opposition.
Some councils, such as Piet Retief, have scrapped proposed extravaganzas in the wake of public outrage but many, such as Sabie, broke out the champagne after insisting there was nothing wrong with inviting only ANC supporters or members.
The defiance has reinforced growing public perceptions that elected politicians, from all parties, are merely in the game for personal gain.
In Nelspruit, the ANC is fielding Isiah Khoza against the DA’s Jaco van Heerden, while in Witbank the ruling party’s candidate is Gloria Thwala-Dlamini and the DA’s man is Koos Venter. The ANC is expected to sweep both metropoles. The DA is the only real opposition contender in the province even in Ermelo, formerly a Freedom Front stronghold.
That said, traditionally staunch ANC districts, such as the deep rural village of Gutshwakop, have shocked the provincial government after publicly criticising Premier Ndaweni Mahlangu and welcoming the DA into their community.
Gutshwakop leaders told Leon that damaged bridges, roads and power lines had stood unattended for 10 months despite urgent pleas for assistance.
Voter apathy is an issue for the first time in Mpumalanga, with provincial IEC chief Steve Ngwenya complaining that many rural voters appear unmotivated by an unusually low-key election build-up. “We’ve managed to register more voters than ever before, but electioneering has been very low-key and people appear unexcited,” said Ngwenya.
Only 400?000 of Mpumalanga’s estimated 1,8-million potential voters have failed to register for the elections and, Ngwenya says, the IEC has managed to reach more rural voters than ever before.
The key issues for those rural voters remain basic services, such as water, electricity and roads.
The ANC’s promises for free basic services to the poorest of the poor has struck a chord but is also causing embarrassment in the capital Nelspruit, where local ANC councillors steamrollered South Africa’s first water commercialisation scheme through in April last year.
The R1,3-billion deal outraged local unions and residents after granting exclusive water management rights to a controversial British-led consortium for 30 years.
The Biwater consortium promised better water and sewerage services for the city’s 250?000 residents, but few new pipes have been laid, water interruptions have increased and so have costs.
“Absolutely nothing has improved since Biwater arrived. We seldom get water around the clock anymore, but are still luckier than some neighbours who have not had water for up to two weeks now. The only thing that has increased are our rates,” said unemployed KaNyamazane resident Bernard Mashego
Mpumalanga’s other major development centrepiece, the R2-billion Maputo Corridor toll road, has also become a major election issue in the small towns it straddles, with thousands of commuters accusing the government of crippling their economies by instituting the highest road toll fees in South Africa.
Residents contend the tollgates were deliberately placed between their residential suburbs and schools, business centres and other civic facilities.
Corruption remains an issue, with the mayoral candidate for one of Mpumalanga’s three super district councils, Jerri Ngomane, still fighting allegations of R15-million fraud.
Ngomane is one of a number of ANC and independent candidates implicated in fraud, corruption, intimidation and theft in recent investigation reports.
Disillusionment at the apparent abuses and the ANC’s exclusion of popular local leaders from election lists has created tension in major centres such as Standerton.