Will the DA’s blueprint work?
The party fared well in its municipalities but its newly won metros bring challenges with them
As the Democratic Alliance takes to the seats of power once occupied by ANC councillors in three metros, its newly elected mayors have reiterated the party’s key promises: to quash corruption, create jobs and improve service delivery.
To tackle these issues, as was stated by mayor Athol Trollip in Nelson Mandela Bay in his inauguration speech, the party will draw on its successes in its other municipalities. These include the City of Cape Town, which it has run for a decade, and the Midvaal municipality in Gauteng, where it has had a majority since 2001.
In their inauguration speeches this week, the new mayors of Tshwane (Solly Msimanga) and Nelson Mandela Bay reiterated the promises made as far back as 2009 when Helen Zille delivered her first speech as Western Cape premier in 2009.
Although the elections outcome in the three metros came as a surprise to many, the DA had positioned itself for victory. This week, the party’s federal executive chairper- son, James Selfe, disclosed that the party, before the elections, had quietly trained 150 people to help run the municipalities the party anticipated it would gain. It also plans to send officials to the South African Local Government Association and the national treasury for training, he said.
Cape Town and Midvaal have a fairly good record for financial management, as reflected in the auditor general’s annual reports, and for combating corruption, and both have some of the better employment rates in the country.
But the two still face shortcomings in matters of service delivery. Cape Town’s infamous “poo protests” highlighted slow delivery of sanitation to residents. In Midvaal, the DA local council is accused by the ANC opposition of prioritising affluent white areas “while poor black people live in squalid conditions in horse stables and shacks”.
The DA may have grand plans to