Spare a thought for the mayor who lost a ward by eight votes to the DA and then lost his job as a result. Something positive will come out of it though – betting platforms will be making millions on odds guessing where he will mushroom next. My money’s on leading a yet to be established Ministry of Local Governance Improvement.
The downside is that the DA is going to have something else to remind you about on election day, as though the three phone calls about the successes of Midvaal, uMngeni and Kouga you’ll get wouldn’t be enough.
DA wins ward in Emfuleni
It’s a big deal though. Not only did the ANC lose the ward but they lost it on the strength of the community seeing how much better things were in the neighbouring Midvaal municipality. This is not a whitey stronghold moving from their fractional local cousin politician to the DA. This is a township…in Gauteng.
It’s a big deal even if it was won through very strategic campaigning and focus on a particular voting station area. It got the job done and sent an unfathomably powerful message. It also equips the DA with the power to show what they can do with a single ward in six months ahead of the local elections. That’s a tool that the ANC just handed the DA; and they’ll be unhappy about it.
Another bet: in October 2026, we’ll see some DA campaign about what they did in Evaton West and how they can do it for you too. I can already see the billboards.
You still have to feel sorry for the ousted mayor, Sipho Radebe. He did nothing wrong. Well, that’s not true; he did a lot wrong. What I mean is he did nothing that isn’t in the typical township mayor ANC playbook. He just happened to have a by-election at the wrong time but it’s not like things are better in Vhembe, Alfred Nzo, Elliotdale and Zululand. He’s probably looking at all the other mayors wondering what he did differently that was so wrong as to cost him his job while they kept theirs.
Have people lost faith in the ANC?
Eight votes! That’s all it took to make the comrades tell him to fall on the sword that’s in front of all of them. Have you any idea how easy it should have been to overcome those eight votes?
This was never a rich area. This was never a place any other party has had control for 32 years. This was a place primed for Sipho Radebe to offer the promise of a better life for all… and his team had 32 years to do it. What’s the result been? Upsetting the constituency gifted unto you by the horror of apartheid does not seem to be a way to give them a better life. Regifting your constituency to your political rivals does smack somewhat of an admission that you couldn’t do your job.
But it wasn’t just the DA that gave the ANC a thrashing. The EFF also showed up strong and that doesn’t just tell you that people were buying into another party. It shows you that people were opting out of trusting the ANC.
It’s the last thing that the ANC’s Fikile Mbalula, the former Minister of Razzmatazz, needed as he gears up to an election campaign.
I’d like to think that it would be the wakeup call the party needs in order to jack up local services, but even losing a three-decade national majority couldn’t galvanise any of their leadership into service.
I can’t imagine it will rouse a couple of mayors who still have a few months to get what they can out of their positions.
