/ 7 December 2008

ANC’s ‘slapgat’ approach may be costly in by-elections

South African voters will have their first opportunity next Wednesday to vote for the Congress of the People (Cope) and Capetonians believe the troubled Western Cape political landscape is about to change forever.

Last week the ANC took the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) to the high court in an application for an urgent interdict after the party failed to register candidates in eight Cape metro wards and four rural wards. The IEC refused to accept its late registration papers.

Cope has focused its resources on the Western Cape where it is contesting 27 of 41 by-elections taking place nationally.

On Thursday the ANC again went to court to try and get the IEC to postpone by-elections in 12 wards in the Cape Town and Cederberg municipalities. The party argues that it cannot register voters because the electoral judge — South Africa’s only such official — is on holiday until next year and cannot be reached to adjudicate between the ANC and the IEC.

If the ANC does not find relief in court, it will effectively hand these wards to Cope or other opposition parties, diminishing its councillors in the Western Cape from 81 to 73.

A senior ANC official in the province told the Mail & Guardian: ”We [the ANC] were simply too slapgat and arrogant to register our candidates with the IEC by the cut-off date.

”Our officials sauntered over to the IEC’s offices and said they were stuck in traffic and didn’t have all the necessary papers because they thought the IEC will bend the rules for them.”

Cape Town’s newspapers have reported that the ANC secretary general, Gwede Mantashe, came down like a ton of bricks on provincial leader Mcebisi Skwatsha and provincial secretary Sipho Kroma for failing to take the registration process seriously.

Cope national spokesperson Phillip Dexter said his party is confident of performing well in all 27 wards in the Western Cape.

”Our first test was our convention,” Dexter said. ”But it’s our first ballot box test and we’ve pushed for these by-elections because we have a point to prove.

”We’re confident. Fighting it out at the ballot box is our terrain especially given the fact that the ANC in the province is in such a mess. They can’t even register their candidates in time because they’re fighting so hard among themselves.”

A Cope organiser told the M&G his party has a good chance of success in the rural by-elections, but that the major contest with the ANC would be in the metro council wards.

The deputy provincial secretary of the ANC, Max Ozinsky, said that the ANC is ”convinced that we have a right to contest the election and that the court will find in our favour. If we’re allowed to stand in the election we will win the election.”

Mayor of Cape Town and DA leader Helen Zille said the DA will only contest some of the by-elections on Wednesday.
”The DA is not falling apart; the ANC is,” Zille said.

”Cope is primarily a threat to the ANC. It will probably attract some ANC voters who might otherwise have thought of voting DA. But the DA’s support base remains solid,” Zille said.