Cape Town -
Parties which found themselves in the losers’ corner in the Western Cape mostly managed to display a stiff upper lip.
Some said they would look at mistakes made on the campaign trail with an eye to rebuilding ahead of the 2016 municipal elections. Others complained about campaigning with limited funds.
Cope was one of the biggest losers in this year’s election, losing the three seats it won in the Western Cape legislature in 2009 when Cope garnered 7.7 percent of the vote.
With all voting districts counted, Cope had received 12 520 votes (0.59 percent).
Theo Godden, the Western Cape premier candidate who will now return to his post as the Speaker of the Witzenberg municipality, admitted disappointment.
“It’s a downer for us,” he said, adding
that theimpact of losing 19 members who defected to the ANC at the last minute was greater than expected.
“We are totally going to go back to the drawing board.”
Godden, who was still wearing a Cope beret, said the focus now had to switch to the 2016 municipal elections.
“It’s a total different ballgame.
“We do believe that we can still participate and do well in those local elections”.
Then there’s the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) which looks set to win a seat in the 42-person provincial legislature for the fifth time in a row although it lost more than 7 000 supporters compared with 2009 when the party polled 28 995 votes.
Ferlon Christians, the ACDP’s provincial leader who was its premier candidate, will take up the seat.
The party’s provincial chairman, Lusani Mulaudzi, said it had not been an easy campaign and the party had been hamstrung by a lack of finances.
“We were very encouraged by improvement in certain areas where we compete a lot with the DA for your white Christian vote,” he said.
“But our campaign in the black townships was not as good this time around.”
Sebenzile Kiva of the United Democratic Movement (UDM), which failed to gain a seat in the provincial legislature, said his party needed to work to spread its message beyond Khayelitsha and Langa and, and had to try to win coloured and white voters’ support.
“We didn’t do well in this election because of finances. We don’t have enough funds to run a campaign,” Kiva said.
Lulamile Ntonzima of the PAC, which received only 3 591 votes in the province, said his party needed to market itself.
“Our state of visibility was very weak in terms of T-shirts and posters,” said Ntonzima.
“We aimed high, we thought we would have at least three seats in the provincial legislature, but we ended up with none.”
The Patriotic Alliance of Gayton McKenzie and Kenny Kunene was absent from the provincial results centre in Bellville.
The party had aspired to win over Manenberg and Mitchells Plain, but lost both suburbs to the DA.
However, its 8 510 votes in the province were still more than those cast for AgangSA, which got only 6 398.
Al Jamah’ah was one of the few small parties that won more votes this time around than in 2009.
The party had 13 182 votes, about 4 000 more than in 2009.
Saturday Argus