Community and candidates cry foul over ELM coalitions
Little known, Sipho Radebe of the ANC was elected as the new ELM Executive Mayor on Monday.
SEDIBENG. – Now that the dust has settled, and a new Executive Mayor and Councillors have been elected for the Emfuleni Local Municipality (ELM), both community members and candidate’s from smaller parties are crying foul.
The community members from the parties, amongst them the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) have said that they cannot believe that their parties have ‘double crossed’ them in getting into a coalition with the African National Congress (ANC), a party that they did not want to vote for in the first place. The ANC did not win a majority vote in the ELM and therefore needed to get into a coalition with the smaller parties to have a majority vote, and this has angered the voters and smaller party candidates alike.
Speaking to Sedibeng Ster, ACDP candidate for Ward 34, Archbishop Moses Mathebula said that the party has made them and their supporters ‘fools’.
“We could not believe it when we heard that the party had entered into negotiations with the ANC without engaging with us at a lower level. This is not right; our people are now angry with us. We were played for fools here.”
It is said that most of the smaller party and independent candidates had even gone to the extent of resigning from their employment with the hope that they would be given employment at the ELM once the elections were over.
Some are believed to have used their ‘last’ savings to register for the elections with the hope of a ‘better life’ after the elections, however, this seems to have been a farfetched dream. 
Little known, Sipho Radebe of the ANC was elected as the new ELM Executive Mayor on Monday.
