DA trounces ANC in Cape registration drive

DEMOCRATIC Alliance strong-holds have comprehensively outshone ANC-supporting areas in registering new voters in Cape Town during November's voter registration weekend.

With almost 70% of the province's voters, Cape Town holds the key if the ANC wants to wrest the Western Cape back from DA control.

But statistics released by the Independent Electoral Commission show that the ANC has a mountain to climb to reclaim the province, and much focus will be on the last voter registration weekend in February.

It is often claimed that registering your supporters is the key to electoral success. If so, the DA won round one in Cape Town in November.

Seven out of the 10 Cape Town wards registering the most new voters in November were DA strongholds, which leaves the party in control of eight of the 10 Cape Town wards with the most voters.

In contrast, all 10 Cape Town wards with the smallest numbers of new voters are ANC wards, which leaves the party with nine out of the 10 wards with the smallest numbers of voters in the city.

Although the fiercely pro-ANC ward 95 (Enkanini in Khayelitsha) had the biggest increase in voters (2863), it was followed by three wards in which almost everyone votes DA - ward 103 (Durbanville, with an increase of 2777), ward 8 (Brackenfell, with an increase of 2376 voters) and ward 23 (Bloubergstrand, with an increase of 2336 voters).

Cape Town's biggest wards, each with more than 20000 voters, are Durbanville, DA-supporting Table View and Durbanville Rural.

Several ANC strongholds registered almost no increase in voters in November. Ward 41 in Gugulethu registered the smallest growth, adding only 41 voters over the registration weekend. Khayelitsha Silvertown added only 114 voters, Gugulethu/Nyanga 152, Langa-Joe Slovo 183 and Crossroads grew by 221 voters. This leaves ward 41 in Gugulethu with the fewest voters in the metro, followed by Nyanga , Thembokwezi, Gugulethu/Nyanga and Mandela Park.

ANC Western Cape secretary Songezo Mjongile acknowledged that the party's new voter-registration drive had been underwhelming. He blamed it, in part, on the Department of Home Affairs.

"The issue that we picked up was that many people have lost their IDs due to shack fires, and while it was free to get a new ID, it cost R140 for one to be re-issued," said Mjongile.

He said the IEC's infrastructure also had to be improved to easily accommodate township residents. "Most people work long hours. That's why you'll find that queues at voter registration stations are long, which discourages people."

He said the ANC would have another opportunity to reach out to new voters in February.

"We'll have to intensify voter registration in those areas [traditional ANC strongholds]," said Mjongile.

DA Western Cape chairman Anton Bredell said that although the party remained positive about its chances of retaining the province, the leadership was sceptical of specific electoral targets.

The party's provincial leader, Ivan Meyer, has previously said that it would target 60% of the vote at next year's poll, which would be an increase of nine percentage points from the 2009 elections.

Bredell said the key to retaining the Western Cape for the DA was not just registering new voters, but also the party's performance where it governed.