The African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) has called for a multi-party governance system in the Western Cape after Wednesday’s local government elections.
The party’s leadership made the call on Friday after no single party won an absolute majority in Cape Town, paving the way for political parties to form coalitions. But some have ruled this option out.
”In acknowledgement that the ANC has lost its majority while the DA has not gained sufficient majority with the result that the ID and the ACDP together hold the balance of power in Cape Town and several other Western Cape municipalities … the ACDP proposes … a multi-party democracy,” the party said in a statement.
It proposed a 10-member executive committee which would comprise the DA with four seats, the ANC with three seats, the ID with two seats and the ACDP with one seat.
The move was in the Western Cape people’s interest ”where decisions and policies benefit all people”, the party said.
The Democratic Alliance took 41,85% of the vote in Wednesday’s poll, to hold 90 of the 210 seats on the city council. It won 61 of the city’s 105 wards and 29 proportional representation (PR) seats. Of the 1 456,350 votes cast, 609 545 went to the DA.
The African National Congress obtained 552 105 votes, or 37,91%, for 81 seats — 41 of them ward and 40 PR seats.
The Independent Democrats (ID) holds the balance of power with 23 seats, of which three are ward and 20 PR seats. This translates to 10,75% or 156 550 of the votes cast.
The African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) came in fourth with 3,22% of the vote and seven seats — all of them PR.
The African Muslim party won three PR seats with 1,33% of the votes, the United Democratic Movement two PR seats with 0,82%, the Freedom Front Plus one PR seat with 0,49%, the Pan Africanist Congress one seat with 0,49%, the United Independent Front one seat with 0,24% and the Universal Party one PR seat with 0,16%.
Final results to be announced on Saturday
The final results of the local government elections will be announced on Saturday at a function in Pretoria, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) said on Friday.
President Thabo Mbeki was expected to attend the announcement.
IEC Chief Electoral Officer Pansy Tlakula said that by 4pm on Friday, 99,6% of the voting districts had been captured and 96,94% had been counted and audited.
Results in three provinces were still outstanding. These were Gauteng, the Free State and KwaZulu-Natal.
Voter turnout was at 48,42%, which was similar to that in 2000, she said.
”The Commission had hoped that the turnout would reach 50% but the difficult weather conditions on Wednesday probably prevented that,” Tlakula said.
Wide variations have been recorded in the voter turnout in the different provinces.
In the Eastern Cape 56,06% of voters cast their ballots. In the Western Cape 51,79% voted and in the Northern Cape 53,51%. The Free State had 47,22% voters turning up, Gauteng 42,46%, KwaZulu-Natal 50,64% and Limpopo 44,75%. Forty-four percent of voters in Limpopo turned up at voting stations, in Mpumalanga 46,35% voted and in the North West, the voter turnout was 45,63%.
Tlakula said there was an interesting situation in Ditsobotla, formerly known as Lichtenburg, where the toss of a coin would soon decide the winner between an African National Congress candidate and an independent candidate.
In ward 15 of this municipality there was a draw, and ”the winner will shortly be determined with the toss of a coin as legally prescribed”.
Public interest in the process was very intense, the IEC said. Its official website had more than 10 000 hits on Tuesday, with the frequency rising to more than 122 000 hits on election day.
On Thursday 266 194 hits were recorded and server capacity at the Commission had to be increased.
The ANC has so-far won 223 councils and had drawn 66,3% of the vote. The Democratic Alliance won 10 councils, with 14,7% of the vote and the Inkatha Freedom Party had won 27 councils with eight percent of the vote. – Sapa