Zuma not to blame for drop but ANC

However, whatever decisions the ANC takes, he (Zuma) also forms part of the collective. The three percent drop in the vote cannot squarely be put on Zuma alone.”

South Africa held its fourth post-apartheid local government elections last week.

The ANC won 63.65 percent of the vote, the Democratic Alliance 21.97 percent, the Inkatha Freedom Party 3.94 percent, the National Freedom Party 2.58 percent and the Congress of the People 2.33 percent.

The DA gained support in eight out of nine provinces, while ANC support declined in most provinces, except KwaZulu-Natal.

In the last municipal elections in 2006, the ANC secured 66.3 percent of the vote and the DA 14.8 percent.

The ANC is set to hold its national congress next year, where its leader for the following five years will b

Is there going to be change after such long que???

South African politics is following a slightly Zimbabwean pattern. Don’t be alarmed, it’s just one of those laws of politics that happens. It’s that in South Africa, as in Zimbabwe before, the more rural areas are staying loyal to the liberation party for longer. The urban, denser areas, are first to be shifting to the DA.

There are several reasons for this.
The one is the poorer you are or the more you suffered under apartheid, the longer you are likely to remain loyal to the party that freed you. It’s also a function of your daily life. You make decisions based on the information available to your community.

You speak to people who live around you, and that’s where the local ANC branch plays a bigger role. It’s about what’s really happening on the ground; about equating the ANC with government itself.
If you live in a city, the information available to you is more likely to be channelled through the media (no silly comments please) than through your community. You are more likely to be aware of contestation between parties, whereas in more rural areas, the contestation tends to happen within the ANC.

DA, COPE consider coalition in W Cape...

The Democratic Alliance (DA) and the Congress of the People (COPE) say they are considering possible coalitions in some of the municipalities where they did not get an outright majority in the Western Cape.

The DA won 15 municipalities with an outright majority, including the hotly contested Cape Metro, Stellenbosch and Drakenstein in the Boland. The African National Congress only won with an outright majority in one municipality. COPE says it will make an announcement of its plans later today.

Meanwhile, DA Provincial leader Theuns Botha says they have already started with negotiations with other parties. He confirmed that they have already done two of those coalitions and that the big one still outstanding is COPE.

"We have had initial talks, we have a federal executive meeting today where we will take it further and most probably conclude it during the rest of the week," Botha said.  

This comes as the national council of the National Freedom Party has formed a seven-man committee which will negotiate coalition agreements with other political parties. The party reiterated that it is ready to form a coalition with any other political party in KwaZulu-Natal

Support for South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) may drop to 59% in local elections on Wednesday from 66% in the last such vote in 2006, a survey said. The ANC is expected to storm to victory given its dominance over politics but any gains by the main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) could embarrass President Jacob Zuma ahead of the ANC's main policy-setting meeting next year.

"The African National Congress remains the strongest political party in the country, although their support seems to have decreased since the 2009 general election," the polling group IPSOS said in a statement.The IPSOS survey of 2 000 people put the main opposition DA as runners up with 19%, followed by the Inkatha Freedom Party with 2%. The bulk of the remainder are undecided.

The biggest issue in the election is the quality of governance, with the ANC facing violent protests in recent years from its traditional base of poor blacks who feel the party has not done enough to provide them with running water, sanitation, schools and healthcare.Many voters have become disillusioned with the ANC, which liberated South Africa from decades of oppression and white minority rule.

Although the ANC has made some strides, since taking power 17 years ago, towards addressing infrastructure backlogs, millions of the poor still live in abject poverty. Elections are held every five years and 121 parties are fighting for 4 275 ward seats and 460 proportional representation seats.

DA: Statement by Helen Zille, Democratic Alliance leader, on the local government election (17/05/2011)

 A message to all South Africans:
 
When you enter the polling booth tomorrow, you will vote for the party you want to govern your town or city. The choice you make will have a profound impact on your life and the future of your country. 
 
It will determine whether basic services like electricity, clean water and sanitation are delivered. And it will determine whether the local economy grows or declines, whether jobs are created or destroyed. 
 
It is the choice between success and failure. 
 
How you vote will also determine whether we unite around the vision of Nelson Mandela, to which the DA is committed, or whether we allow ourselves to be divided along race lines, as the ANC has done in this election.


SOUTH AFRICAN PRESIDENT

 UMSHINI WAM UMSHINI WAM......J ZEEEE

SAME SPEECH SAME PROMISES.....

The ANC is losing sight of its liberal heritage

 

IN A country where more than 80% of the people describe themselves as Christians and two-thirds believe that the Bible, as the word of God, should be understood literally, President Jacob Zuma’s warning was taken to heart. “When you vote for the ANC (African National Congress),” he told an election rally of the party faithful in the Eastern Cape province on February 5th, “you are choosing to go to heaven. When you don’t vote for the ANC, you should know that you are choosing that man who carries a fork…who cooks people.”

In case anyone should think this a mere “figure of speech”, as his officials later tried to claim, the president, who is a lay pastor, went on to drive his message home: 

“When you are carrying an ANC membership card, you are blessed. When you get up there, there are different cards used, but when you have an ANC card, you will be let through to go to heaven.” And if, perchance, anyone were foolish enough to leave the ruling party to set up a rival splinter, as the Congress of the People (COPE) recently did, “you will struggle until you die,” he proclaimed. “The ancestors of this land…will all turn their backs on you.”