Voting trends suggest that the African National Congress will hold municipalities that defected to it during two floor-crossing windows after the
December 2000 municipal poll.
While municipal elections can articulate voter frustration with the ruling party, floor-crossing patterns appear to reflect broad changes in electoral support on the ground. For example, before the ANC won the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal legislatures in 2004, floor-crossings almost toppled the Inkatha Freedom Party-led government in KwaZulu-Natal in 2003, while the New NationalParty/ANC formed a joint government in the Western Cape in 2002.
If these patterns continue, the ANC will sweep traditional opposition areas such as the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal on March 1. In the 2000 municipal poll, the ANC won 170 municipalities, the IFP 36 and the Democratic Alliance 18 — but these figures exclude district councils.
But the ANC gained majoritiesa in 20 more municipalities in the first crossing and nine in the second. Hardest hit by the defections was the DA, although the IFP lost control of six councils. It will be a hard trend to reverse. And the drift to the ANC has gained momentum.
In the first floor-crossing in October 2002, it gained 107 councillors and lost 16. In September 2004, it picked up 330 and lost just four. This took its overall tally to 6 049, or 68,4%, of the country’s 8 840 councillors.
According to the Independent Electoral Commission, the ANC won less than 60% support countrywide in 2000, followed by the DA with 22% and the IFP with 9%. The battle in opposition strongholds has been complicated for the DA and IFP by the emergence of Patricia de Lille’s Independent Democrats in the Western Cape, and the National Democratic Convention, led by Ziba Jiyane, in KwaZulu-Natal.
The DA was the biggest casualty of the first municipal floor-crossing in 2002, after the NNP withdrawal. It lost 417 councillors — 340 to the NNP, 51 to the ANC, and 19 to independents and other groups. It gained only 17 seats from other parties. The margins required for a power shift are generally small.
According to the South African Local Government Research Centre, the municipalities that moved into the ANC-NNP orbit in the first period included Kouga, in the Eastern Cape, where the defection of one DA councillor gave the ANC-NNP alliance a one-seat majority, and the province’s Baviaans municipality, where two DA councillors defected to the ANC.
In KwaZulu-Natal, the trend has been a systematic strengthening of the ANC. The Kwa Sani council, for example, moved from being shared by the ANC and IFP to being ANCdominated. Ugu changed from an IFP to a joint IFP/ANC administration, while at Endumeni an IFP/ ANC/DA administration went ANC.
A similar pattern is evident in the Northern Cape, where the floorcrossings put all councils in the broad ANC/NNP ambit. In the Western Cape, seven municipalities shifted from the DA to the ANC, including the only DA-controlled metropolitan area, Cape Town. Others to fall were Swellendam, Stellenbosch, the Garden Route/Klein Karoo district council, Drakenstein, the Overberg district council and the South Cape district council. In addition, at Witzenberg, Oudtshoorn, Saldanha Bay and Kannaland, joint ANC/DA administrations fell to the ANC, while at Overstand a DA administration went NNP.
In Prince Albert, the DA was forced to share control with the ANC/NNP/DA. In the 2004 floor-crossing 10 municipalities changed “dominant party” status. They were Aberdeen Plain in the Eastern Cape, which switched from NNP to ANC; Golden Gate Highlands in the Free State, which changed from DA to ANC; Mtshezi, Endondakusuka and Ubuhlebezwe in KwaZulu-Natal, all of which changed from Inkatha to the ANC; Renosterberg in the Northern Cape, which changed from NNP
back to the DA, giving the DA one municipality in the province; Overstrand in the Western Cape, where the NNP administration changed to ANC;
Langeberg in the Western Cape, which went from the DA to the ANC; Knysna, which went from the DA to the ANC and; Breede River, which went from the NNP to the ANC.