By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The African National Congress (ANC) has defeated an effort by a group of disgruntled former councillors, who campaigned to wrest power from the governing party through a coalition in the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality in the Free State.
From this group, four former ward councillors of the ANC registered as independent candidates after they were fired for voting with the DA to elect Maryke Davies as the Mangaung council speaker.
The ANC retained all four seats in Mangaung, empowering its 51 councillors out of the 101 in council, to remove Davies.
ANC Mangaung spokesperson Ncamile Nxangisa said the results showed residents understood why “rogue” councillors had to be removed.
“The ANC had no doubt about its credibility in the eyes of the voters during campaigning. This was as a result of a concerted effort to explain to voters why their organisation had to expel rogue elements who sought nothing but to erode and dismantle the people’s power,” he said.
Meanwhile, the DA won two of the three by-elections in George, Western Cape, with the Patriotic Alliance (PA) winning one ward by 1 398 votes.
The victory in George comes after a dispute between the DA and the GOOD party over claims of fraud.
However, the Electoral Court dismissed GOOD’s application for the postponement of by-elections in George, where the party had alleged that the DA committed voter registration fraud.
The ANC won the sole by-election in the Eastern Cape’s Senqu Local Municipality by 787 votes.
It also won the only ward contested in North West by 1 225 votes.
All in all, the ANC won six by-elections across the country; IFP bagged two wards; the DA also won two; the PA one; while the EFF and other contestants came out empty-handed.
The next round of by-elections will be on 23 August when the DA will defend a safe seat in Johannesburg and the ANC will defend three safe seats in the Chris Hani district of the Eastern Cape. The ANC will defend a seat in Madibeng, North West.