A month after taking over as mayor of Nelson Mandela Bay - an appointment aimed at stemming the sharp drop in support for the ANC in the embattled metro - soccer supremo Danny Jordaan has unveiled a tough, no-frills austerity budget. Council expenditure on overseas travel is outlawed, spending on public holiday celebrations, conferences and car hire is sharply cut, and hiring of non-essential staff is frozen to turn a R430-million deficit into a R42-million surplus.The slashing of official expenditure in the metro, which includes Port Elizabeth and which for years has languished under the dead hand of ANC infighting, corruption and patchy service delivery, is an opening salvo ahead of next year's local government elections.After years of misrule, support for the ruling party in the metro plummeted to below 50% in the general election last year, from a comfortable 67% in 2006.Whether Jordaan's cost-cutting will be enough to convince the long-suffering voters of Nelson Mandela Bay to stick with the ANC is moot - the DA's star has been rising in the metro to the extent that it believes it can win outright next year, or at least rule by coalition.But any serious measures to rein in wasteful expenditure by well-paid officials can only benefit the electorate.The fact that several of the country's eight metros - which together contribute up to 75% of our GDP - are no longer ANC safe seats can only be good for ratepayers.Precisely because the DA and Economic Freedom Fighters put in a strong showing in the national poll last year, politicians and council officials have no choice but to up their game in ''marginal'' metros such as Johannesburg - where the billing crisis is almost a thing of the past - Ekurhuleni and Tshwane.Just as they did in the epochal 1994 election, citizens might just get to see real democracy in action next year...