Hotspot: People queue to vote outside the Glebelands hostels in Umlazi
The number of independent candidates in the province has grown since the last local government elections. They have left established political parties citing corruption, failure to deliver services and violence over the candidate lists.
Political analysts say the increased number of independent candidates will have very little effect on the election results, which will be finalised by Saturday.
Mongezi Ntilane, an independent candidate in Msunduzi municipality, said he went out on his own because the ANC was just not delivering for the people in Tambo Valley, outside Pietermaritzburg. He said he had also feared the violence that would follow the battles of the candidate lists.
“I was shafted out of a big project that was providing roads for my community. The person who took over has done absolutely nothing for this community and now the community has asked me to stand in for them,” he said.
Nationally, 831 candidates left political parties to stand on their own, an increase from 754 in the previous municipal elections.
In KwaZulu-Natal in 2011, there were more than 100 independent candidates who collected more than 50 000 votes but the entrenched parties such as the Inkatha Freedom Party and the ANC remained in power in their strongholds.
Analyst Aubrey Matshiqi said: “The identity of the party is still much stronger than that of the independent candidates, especially regarding those candidates who have broken off from the ruling party. The brand of the ruling party is just too strong.”
But he felt it was not a waste of time. “This goes to show how our democracy is strengthening and these independents are providing the voters with options.”
His biggest concern was the reasons candidates left the parties to weather the political heat.
Recent events, including the deaths of candidates and intra-party squabbles, have left many candidates out in the cold.
But some candidates such as Thamsanqa Masiteng, who is running in AbaQulusi municipality, were completely sidelined by their party and decided to go it alone rather than not to contest the elections at all.
In the last local government elections, Masiteng stood for the Democratic Alliance in his ward but he lost.
“My votes that I did get put a DA person in the council through the PR [proportional representation] votes. This time they went behind my back to ask someone else to stand here after everything I did for the party. But I love my community and I will serve them,” he said.
Like Masiteng, there are many other candidates trying their luck. Ebrahim Fakir, from the Electoral Institute for the Sustainability of Democracy in Africa, said some independents simply wanted to see how many votes they will garner since they did not appear on any party lists or were not high up enough to stand for the party.
“In KZN, many people chose to run independently because of the internal squabbles in the ANC or other political parties.”
Fakir added that, although the ruling party will still retain majority in KwaZulu-Natal, it will be by a slimmer margin.
“All the independents standing will take away the PR votes for the ANC,” he predicted.