Cape Town | Friday
TONY Leon goes into battle on Friday with his co-leader of the Democratic Alliance, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, armed with detailed research on Cape voters that does serious damage to the New National Party’s record in the Cape Town council.
The full report, leaked to the Mail & Guardian, shows that Cape Town mayor Peter Marais – whose role in the street-renaming saga has triggered the explosive row between the Democratic Party and the NNP – is considerably less popular than the NNP makes out.
It finds that the unicity government has failed to get to grips with voters’ main concerns and is generally held in low esteem. And it blows away the myth that Cape Town is a privileged enclave, where citizens believe they have a better quality of life than in other South African cities.
Although the DA has been in power in Cape Town since January, many of the problems identified in the survey reflect more endemic problems in the NNP stronghold.
Western Cape Premier Gerald Morkel, Leon, Van Schalkwyk, the chair of the DA’s national management committee, James Selfe, and Renier Schoeman, Selfe’s deputy, are to meet in Cape Town in a bid to resolve their dispute over Marais. At the same time, the Western Cape NNP is holding a head council meeting to thrash out “frustrations over mistrust” in the alliance.
It has been speculated that the premiership of Morkel, no friend of Marais and seen by NNP hardliners to be siding with his DP detractors, may be under threat.
Leon has effectively staked his political credibility on ousting Marais, who has received the near-unanimous support of the NNP and Van Schalkwyk. The fight has exacerbated tensions in the shaky alliance between the two parties, prompting insiders to speculate that the DA risks falling apart.
The research will allow Leon to argue that the DA can afford to ditch Marais – who the NNP insist is an invaluable vote-catcher – and that the NNP’s legacy in Cape government is so bad that Marais must go. DA strategy is to use the Western Cape to present itself to the broader electorate as a credible governing alliance.
The NNP will argue that Marais has been absolved by the council’s rules committee and that the DP has opportunistically sought to use the street-renaming saga to oust him. Anger erupted in the NNP camp when the council received political orders to postpone a special council meeting to next week. An NNP-sponsored motion to welcome Marais back in office split a heated DA meeting on Monday along NNP and DP lines.
The research was organised between May 30 and June 11 by Ryan Coetzee, Leon’s adviser who was formerly attached to the council, together with Research Surveys, a marketing research company. Coetzee declined to comment on any aspect of the research.
Among other things, the report shows:
— That 58% of respondents believe the city’s quality of life is bad; and 68% that it is no better than in the rest of South Africa.
— Significantly, given Marais’s alleged support base, only 26% of coloured respondents believe it is better.
— That 59% disapprove of the job the unicity is doing. Only 5% endorse its job-creation record and 4% its record on crime, while the city gets negative ratings on housing, HIV/Aids and rates.
— That 76% believe the unicity has no clear plan of action; 70% that it is out of touch with their needs; and 63% that it cares more about itself than citizens.
— That 62% oppose Marais’s street-renaming plan. Significantly, 74% of coloured respondents oppose it.
— Only 28% are favourably disposed to Marais and 24% approve of the job he is doing. Interestingly, Marais gets the best rating from white respondents (48% and 44% respectively). Only 24% of coloureds are well disposed to him, while a mere 15% of coloured respondents endorse his performance. Black opinion is most damning: 52% feel very unfavourably towards him and 69% are unfavourable.
In addition to this research, Leon will also make much of another DP investigation into alleged NNP vote-rigging. The Financial Mail reported that an estimated 20% of NNP members, mainly the Northern and Western Cape, has been rigged by, for example, recruiting dead people or paying party fees on behalf of old-age home residents.
However, the prevailing view is that the alliance will not split, as this would force municipal by-elections across the country. Councillors were elected on a DA ticket in last year’s municipal poll and are prohibited from crossing the floor.
Political analysts say the DP has created a dilemma for itself by intervening politically in a government – in this case, council – matter.
The DP was highly critical of the African National Congress’s intervention to oust its Free State Premier, Mosiuoa Lekota.
Institute for Democracy in South Africa researcher Ebrahim Fakir says Marais’s resilience will ensure he remains “part of the political set-up”.
But Marais could find himself increasingly isolated.