PE shows up ANC's poll fears

04 September 2015 - 02:09 By Olebogeng Molatlhwa and Neo Goba

The threat of political defeat in next year's local government elections drove the ANC to intervene in Port Elizabeth's troubled Nelson Mandela Bay municipality. This is according to Mcebisi Ndletyana, head of the political economy faculty at Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection.He was speaking yesterday at the University of Johannesburg during a discussion on the results of the local government audit.Ndletyana suggested that the decision to install a new team to run the Eastern Cape municipality - a directive from President Jacob Zuma rather than ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe - mirrored the contrasting factional interests currently besetting the ANC ahead of the ruling party's 2017 elective conference.One of the scenarios favoured to emerge from that conference includes Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa becoming ANC president, with Mantashe acting as his deputy.However, it is the dwindling fortunes of the ANC in Nelson Mandela Bay that present an immediate danger to the ruling party.Infighting, graft and a dismal record of service delivery have contributed to the party's once unassailable majority withering from 66.5% in the 2006 local government poll to 51.9% in the 2011 elections, and eventually 47% last year.The DA has seen its support grow from 24% in 2006 to 40% in 2011, but it remains to be seen whether it will be able to dethrone the ANC.The DA will pit its mayoral candidate, Eastern Cape leader Atholl Trollip, against SA Football Association president Danny Jordaan.But Ndletyana cast doubt on the ANC's ability to rid the municipality of corruption."Change comes about when politicians feel there's a real chance of a loss of power. When you look at the intervention of the ANC in Nelson Mandela Bay, the party's actions there certainly point to this phenomenon," said Ndletyana.Mantashe has in the past denied that political considerations were behind the party's intervention in Nelson Mandela Bay."I know that when we effect changes many people talk about local government elections in 2016. That is not the driving force here. The driving force is that people of this metro need delivery of quality services," he said at the time.SA Local Government Association executive director for municipal finance Simphiwe Dzengwa said municipal inefficiencies often were the result of tension between the municipality and regional political party leaders."You find instability within a municipality when there are tensions between the council leadership and the leadership of the political party there," said Dzengwa...

There’s never been a more important time to support independent media.

From World War 1 to present-day cosmopolitan South Africa and beyond, the Sunday Times has been a pillar in covering the stories that matter to you.

For just R80 you can become a premium member (digital access) and support a publication that has played an important political and social role in South Africa for over a century of Sundays. You can cancel anytime.

Already subscribed? Sign in below.



Questions or problems? Email helpdesk@timeslive.co.za or call 0860 52 52 00.