MUNGO SOGGOT, Cape Town | Friday
THE office of Peter Marais, the Democratic Alliance mayor of Cape Town, has been presiding over a vote-rigging exercise to have two prominent streets named after former presidents FW de Klerk and Nelson Mandela.
Petitions purporting to give Capetonians a vote have been filled out with fraudulent signatures in support of Marais’s controversial campaign to change the names of Adderley and Wale streets. In some instances, local National Party organisers have admitted to arranging the circulation and ”signing” of the forms.
The Mail & Guardian has visited households listed on the petitions who had no idea they had voted. The mayor’s office has refused to give the newspaper copies of any votes or petition forms related to the name change and the M&G is now preparing a formal application in terms of the Freedom of Information Act.
The petitions were drawn up after Marais called in April for public submissions on the name change.
It is not known whether Marais, who has effectively staked his political credibility on the plan, has himself been party to the fraud on the citizens of Cape Town.
Marais has, however, publicly misstated the votes. On May 20, Sapa reported Marais as saying the response to the move was ”overwhelmingly positive”, but that reports had shown people were ”poorly informed on the issue”. At that time, council sources say the count of about 500 was overwhelmingly against, with only a handful of letters in support. The following day, on the May 21 deadline, an avalanche of more than 400 pro-votes hit the mayor’s office.
The new ”votes” came in on both petitions and on ”signed” form letters, some of which have also been arranged and circulated by DA organisers on the Cape Flats. A handwriting expert commissioned by the M&G this week confirmed that a random selection of the different signatures had been forged. The expert, Gert Burger, said some of the petition lists – which include 26 names – were in their entirety composed by the same person.
On May 25 Marais was quoted as saying the pro-votes outnumbered those against by two and a half to one. Council sources say that by then the votes were at best equal – even counting the fake entries.
Even without the fraud, the form letters and the petitions are against the spirit of Marais’s call for the public to have its say. After conceiving of the plan – which has been a major talking point in Cape Town – Marais’s office published newspaper advertisements seeking voluntary public input.
The newspaper advertisements called for the public to write in, providing no legitimate opportunity for canvassing on the part of Marais’s employees or the DA.
The advertisement read: ”The proposal is for Adderley Street to be renamed Nelson Mandela Avenue and for Wale Street to be renamed FW de Klerk Laan with effect from June 16 2001. What do you think? Please submit your written comments by no later than May 21, 2001.”
Public opinion expressed in the Cape press has generally been against the move, making Marais’s upbeat statements puzzling. The Cape Chamber of Commerce says, for example, that at least 90% of businesses are opposed to the plan.
After several unsuccessful attempts to obtain the submissions from the council the M&G this week obtained some of them elsewhere. The M&G then picked out a random selection of households from Manenberg, the gang-infested NP stronghold, whose addresses had been provided on the petitions. None of the households had voted, except for a former NP organiser who said she had indeed signed (authentically) and had ”taken the forms and asked her members to sign. I asked another girl to take forms [elsewhere],” she said.
In one household where several occupants were down as having signed, two family members said none of them had signed and laughed off their own ”signatures”. One said, ”I don’t sign like this and neither does she,” while another said, ”The old people don’t want the name change because the streets belong to their history and the young don’t care.”
As for the form letters, some appear to have been authentically signed-off.
However, some copies of the form letters in the possession of the M&G have no addresses. One woman in Mitchells Plain confirmed that her husband had signed after the letters were circulated by a ”DA councillor”. She pointed across the street to another house, saying they had also signed because they are a ”DA house”.
ZA *NOW:
I want to lick you all over December 3, 2000
WCape Cabinet reshuffle announced July 30, 2000
NNP misrepresented my apology – Marais February 24, 2000