Marianne Merten Hitler beat Shakespear (sic) hands down in Harare, ward 99 in Khayelitsha township on the outskirts of Cape Town. Hitler Mdoda, the African National Congress candidate, says his name had never stood in his way. It was given to him by his father “an illiterate man who thought [the Nazi dictator] was a brave man”. The bard’s namesake, Shakespear Myeko of Azapo, failed to capture any literary laurels as he scored even lower than the second past the poll, who received 24 votes. Meanwhile, the Mother City’s own Yasser-Arafat (Shaik Lund) barely managed to make a mark for the Inkatha Freedom Party, and a dead Democratic Alliance candidate Farouk Daniels, who died last month when it was too late to eliminate him from the list beat any living competitor in his ward in Mitchell’s Plain on the Cape Flats. The African Christian Democratic Party also had a few odd names among their Cape unicity hopefuls. There was a Noble, a Small and a McLean. Those espousing Christian values, but with a shoe fetish, could indulge their wildest fantasies by supporting candidate Boot. The DA took on an earthy tone in several wards, possibly where their research indicated voter’s environmental concerns: there was a Berry and a Bush. All the United Democratic Movement had to offer was a Twigg and an Appels (apples). Teetotalling voters in Brackenfell, northern Cape Town, faced a tough choice: could they support someone named Beerwinkel (beer store) with a clean conscience? Those more philosophically inclined could put their cross next to Plato even though any possible links between the Cape Flats candidate and the Greek thinker have yet to be verified. Depending on a voter’s preference for the months of the year, there was a choice of September and the Afrikaans versions of January and March. If some the names of municipal candidates were odd, so were some of the place names. After all, thousands of voters came from Kosovo, an informal settlement, to cast their votes at Weltevreden Valley (Well-satisfied Valley) or walked through the streets of Harare and Lusaka to the polling booths.