Citizens the winners in municipal polls

THERE is no doubt that South Africa’s fifth municipal elections have produced both winners and losers. Independent political analyst, Eusebius McKaiser, said the real winners in these elections are the people of South Africa and the country whose democracy continues to show strength and resilience.

“The voters here are the winners, democracy is the winner. The reality is that we are entrenching democracy. Obviously the ANC’s share of the vote is declining in some areas as we have seen in Port Elizabeth and Western Cape. But, even so it has won more than 50 per cent of the vote in the country which is still a good story to tell for the party after 22 years of democracy,” said McKaiser.

With more than 95 per cent of the results captured, the ANC looks set to retain most of the key municipalities it controlled from 2011, although the party fell short of governing Nelson Mandela Bay, an area that has been its stronghold since taking power in 1994.

“The DA has come up; it will probably have another mayor somewhere in Gauteng. But if we cut through all the data, the bottom line is that we are entrenching democracy and this is a good story regardless of your political affiliation,” said McKaiser.

“So the right thing to analyse if you are a citizen or a journalist is how many wards have been won by a party and how many Proportional Representation seats have been allocated. Don’t only look which council the party is controlling,” McKaiser said.