Smaller parties lost their members to the bigger ones and more independents emerged during the floor-crossing window period. Also, 16 of a total of 555 municipal councillors who crossed the floor over the past two weeks had tried to switch political parties more than once, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) said on Thursday.
This was not allowed by legislation, and those councillors were now stuck with their first choices, IEC chief electoral officer Pansy Tlakula told reporters in Pretoria.
Some of the 16, after informing the IEC of their new political homes, wished to return to their parties of origin, she said. This was also not permitted.
A 15-day window period for councillors to change political allegiances without losing their seats expired at midnight on Wednesday. About one in every 14, or seven percent, of the country’s approximately 8 000 councillors made use of the opportunity.
Most of the floor-crossers were from the Democratic Alliance — 417 in total. This figure exceeded the party’s own estimations.
DA parliamentary chief whip Douglas Gibson on Wednesday said his party had lost 376 of its 1408 municipal councillors countrywide, of which 322 had defected to the NNP and 54 to other parties.
Tlakula on Thursday said 340 DA councillors moved to the New National Party (NNP), 51 to the African National Congress (ANC), 19 became independent councillors and two joined a new formation called the Sport Party.
One DA councillor each crossed over to the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), the Potchefstroom Inwonersvereniging, a party called Breedevallei Onafhanklik, and two other new parties — the Phumelela Ratepayers Association, and the Universal Party.
Tlakula said five new political parties were formed during the window period. The other two were the Black Consciousness Party and the Belastingbetalersvereniging (Tax Payers’ Association).
For the purposes of floor-crossing, the parties were deemed to be registered, but they now had four months to go through the official registration process and pay the required R200 fee per municipality. If they failed to do so, the new parties would forfeit their seats.
The NNP gained a total of 354 seats — 340 from the DA, two from the IFP, one from the UDM and the rest from smaller parties.
”The shift from the DA to the NNP … represented 61% of the total number of councillors who crossed the floor,” Tlakula said.
The NNP could not lose any seats as it did not contest the last municipal elections as an independent party.
The ANC gained 128 new councillors, 22% of the overall number of floor-crossers. Among the most notable of these, 51 were from the DA, 22 from the United Christian Democratic Party, seven from the IFP, 16 from the United Democratic Movement, and 10 from the Pan Africanist Congress. Six independent councillors also switched allegiance to the ANC.
The ANC lost 16 councillors in total — three to the DA, five to the UDM, seven to the IFP and one became an independent councillor.
For its part, the DA gained 17 seats — three from the ANC, three from the UDM, two from the PAC, and the rest from smaller parties.
Only one case was recorded of a councillor being rejected by the party he wished to defect to. This was in Bethlehem in the Free State where the ANC rejected a bid by Bohlokong Civic Association leader Khabane Mofokeng to rejoin their ranks.
ANC provincial secretary Pat Matosa explained that Mofokeng was expelled from the party after being found guilty of sowing division among its members, and then contested the 2000 municipal elections under the banner of his new civic body.
”He knows the procedure — he cannot cross over to regain membership, he has to apply first. He did not want to follow that route, he wanted a shortcut.”
Tlakula said reports of intimidation and bribery were received, but only after all the applications had been processed. The IEC was therefore unable to investigate.
Police were investigating a case of a councillor who allegedly received money to cross over to another party, she added.
The commission was expected to publish a notice in the Government Gazette later in the day, detailing changes in the composition of municipalities to enable affected municipalities to convene council meetings within a prescribed seven-day period. These meetings would serve to elect new office bearers or decide to retain the current ones.
Municipalities with new majority parties as a result of the floor-crossing could opt to elect new mayors, change council policy and appoint new staff. – Sapa