The Tafelsig anti-eviction movement on Wednesday called on residents in Tafelsig, Mitchells Plain, to boycott a by-election being held in the area.
”We don’t want to vote for anybody, because everybody sold us out,” claimed Ashraf Cassiem, chairperson of the anti-eviction movement in Tafelsig, part of Cape Town.
”Vote for yourself because after the parties leave, you eat pap, there’s no breyani. They take it with them again,” he said.
Cassiem predicted a lower-than-average turnout because of what he called ”general apathy” in the predominantly coloured, working-class area.
Cassiem said there were minor scuffles between the movement’s supporters and Cape Town metro police when the movement wanted to march from a voting station at Tafelsig library to another at Tafelsig primary school.
Seven candidates are contesting the by-election in ward 82, believed by many to be a two-horse race between the Independent Democrats and the Democratic Alliance.
Voting stations operate from 7am to 9pm, with the Independent Electoral Commission expected to announce provisional results at midnight.
The poll is being closely monitored, because it has important implications for the DA-run coalition governing Cape Town.
A DA victory would see them double the slender one-councillor advantage in the metro council. — Sapa