Fighting talk from the DA
The DA appears poised to take advantage of deep fractures in the ANC that have extended down to regional and provincial level; however, an analyst believes it would be difficult for the party to win the Eastern Cape come South Africa’s sixth democratic general elections in 2019.
The comment comes after the DA’s Frontier Constituency introduced Nqaba Bhanga, or “Team Nqaba”, to members of the party’s Makana and Ndlambe caucuses at a meeting in Grahamstown this week, with many – including new Frontier Constituency leader Jane Cowley – endorsing him to replace Athol Trollip as provincial leader.
The gathering came two weeks after the regional Executive Committee of the ANC in Sarah Baartman convened its Regional Lekgotla at Green Fountain Resort in Port Alfred.
The DA’s provincial congress is on 5 and 6 May.
Voting there will elect the DA Eastern Cape’s first new leader in 15 years. Trollip has held the position since 2002.
Talk at this week’s DA gathering in Grahamstown was bold, with Cowley saying, “We are not playing a game: we are trying to win back a democracy. We have to show our voters that we believe in clean governance.”
The DA’s goal is to win the Eastern Cape from the ANC in 2019. They won two Eastern Cape municipalities in last year’s local government elections – Nelson Mandela Bay Metro and Kouga.
Speaking at the meeting at a city venue on Monday, Bhanga, who left Cope for the DA in 2014, taking on the portfolio of Human Settlements in Nelson Mandela Bay late last year, was confident of the party’s ability to take the Eastern Cape.
“We want to make sure, as we took Nelson Mandela Bay, that we take the Eastern Cape,” he said. “It’s for that reason we come as a team. We know how to do it.”
However, he acknowledged that while the DA had politicians, it was lacking in administrative capacity.
“If we don’t prepare people for those important administrative positions, we won’t be able to deliver when we do win,” he said.
Bhanga is the Nelson Mandela Bay’s head of Human Settlements, responsible for finding housing for 80 000 people in the Metro, and has been tackling corruption there since late last year.
“We are currently reviewing the housing list,” he told Grocott’s Mail in an interview after the meeting. “It needs to be fair and transparent.”
Asked what he saw as Makana Municipality’s main challenges, he said appointing the right staff would be key to effective governance.
Strengthening its revenue base – “a municipality can’t only depend on grants, it must have its own revenue stream” – and delivering services on time would be the DA’s other challenges were it to win this municipality.
Describing Rhodes University as a beacon of hope for the people of Makana, he said, however, that the reservoir of knowledge in the institution wasn’t felt in the form of outcomes for the town.
“Corruption is rife and there is poor political leadership in Makana,” he said. “We will stabilise it so that people see the impact on their daily lives.”
Bhanga claimed support for the DA was growing in rural communities.
Lecturer in South African politics at Rhodes University, Wesley Seale, however, says winning the Eastern Cape in 2019 would not be easy for the DA.
“Unlike in the Western Cape, where, if you win Cape Town (66% of the province’s voters live in Cape Town), you win the province. It is a bit more difficult in the Eastern Cape. Rural votes, smaller cities e.g. Makana, Mthatha etc and the other metro, Buffalo City, also play a major determining factor.
“Bhanga will have to prove that he would want to make inroads in these areas before posing a real challenge to the ANC in 2024,” Seale said.
“For this he will need to win more municipalities in 2021 and from which better base can he do this than from NMB where he now has experience in not only “winning” but also “governing” – which the DA is after.”
Grocott’s Mail had asked Seale to comment on the processes currently under way within both the DA and the ANC, and to contextualise local events within the national picture.
The ANC in Sarah Baartman, meanwhile, convened its Regional Lekgotla at Port Alfred on 18 and 19 February, with the purpose of intensifying the work of the ANC in the Region towards the 2019 national and 2021 local government elections.
The Lekgotla was set to be attended by all 25 REC members, PEC members deployed in the region, ANC chief whips, Speakers, Mayors from all seven municipalities within the district, ANC Members of Parliament and the Parliamentary Legislature deployed in the region, Chairpersons and Secretaries from all seven sub regions and regional chairpersons and secretaries of the ANC Youth League and ANC Women’s League.
“Enhancing government work, building the organisation and local economic development” were listed as key focuses of the gathering.
In a statement after the Lekgotla, the party listed improving councillors’ performance by capacitating them to expedite service delivery; encourage municipalities to do proper situational analyses and ensure their organisational structures are able to respond to the challenges faced by municipalities; intensify the coordinating role of the district municipality and expedite the relocation of the district municipality from its now DAcontrolled Port Elizabeth base to Sundays River Valley.