DURBAN - AS the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) prepares to release the official results on Thursday, small parties in eThekwini were still hoping to secure a couple of seats through Party Representation (PR). Many small parties failed to win wards and were banking on the PR system to get representation.
ActionSA spokesperson and eThekwini candidate Busi Radebe told the Daily News late on Wednesday that although the party was not seen on the results board, they were not in despair as they were hoping to still secure a couple of seats after the announcement and the allocation of PR seats.
The party questioned the delay and slow pace in capturing and auditing results adding that it suspected something sinister going on behind closed doors. She said her party was hoping to get five seats which it would be happy with as newcomers who started from nothing.
The party had thrown in Dr Makhosi Khoza as mayoral candidate, hoping her experience as a former mayor of Msunduzi Municipality, legislative as well as MP would garner enough votes for the party to force a coalition in the city.
However, by late on Wednesday, the picture was not looking good as only the ANC, DA, IFP and EFF were dominating the IEC results screens in the city.
Khoza is a known anti-corruption activist who left the ANC after supporting the motion of no confidence against former president Jacob Zuma. This angered the ANC which charged her for failing to toe the party line as its deployee in parliament. This year she joined Herman Mashaba after he founded his party, ActionSA.
Abantu Batho Congress, another new party founded by a former ANC mayor, said it was still hopeful it would get a few seats. Its founder former Umvoti (Greytown) mayor Philani Godfrey Mavundla was a mayoral candidate for eThekwini in this election.
On Wednesday afternoon, the party’s hope that it would make a serious impact on the city’s governance diminished with the results.
The party’s election representative Bonga Nzuza said as first-time contenders they went into the fight with nothing to lose and everything to gain.
He said they would accept the seats they would receive, adding that ABC had already done well winning three wards in Greytown, forcing a coalition in that municipality.
“We are happy so far for what we have achieved. We will have a say in the running of Greytown and have won a seat in Nquthu and Dundee. We are still hoping for a couple of seats in eThekwini when the PR seats are allocated,” said Nzuza.
IEC provincial spokesperson Thabani Ngwira said the results would be officially released at 11am this morning.
Daily News