Cape Town - The DA will be in the driving seat of the Cape Town metro for the next five years, after trouncing the ANC to score its first two-thirds majority in the city council in last week's municipal polls.
Its members will occupy 154 of the 231 seats, while the ANC has been reduced to 57 seats from the 73 it previously held.
The EFF has made the greatest gains of the 36 parties which contested last week's elections, making its debut in the metro council with seven seats.
The ACDP will be retaining the three seats it held.
Of the minority parties previously represented on the council, losing the most ground is the Africa Muslim Party (AMP). From three seats in 2000, it has now lost the single seat it won in 2011, held by its longest-serving councillor Wasfie Hassiem.
Also losing out is the National Party, represented by Achmat Williams.
Al Jama'ah is the only of the single-seat parties from the previous term to up its representation to two seats in this municipal poll.
The Cape Muslim Congress (CMC), the Freedom Front Plus (FF+) and the PAC have all retained their representation with a single seat each, while Cope joins their ranks down from three seats.
Meanwhile, the UDM has made a comeback to the metro council with one seat, after losing its seat in 2011.
The Patriotic Alliance (PA), African Independent Congress (AIC) and the Democratic Independents (DI) represented by controversial former PAC councillor Anwar Adams, are the newcomers to the metro council, each with a single seat.
On the eve of last week's election, Local Government MEC Anton Bredell upheld a council resolution that Adams be suspended for a month without pay for an alleged anti-Semitic remark he made on Facebook last year. But the decision is now moot.
“I don't see why you have to punish a councillor in a new term for something he did in a previous term,” said Bredell.
ANC Western Cape provincial secretary Faiez Jacobs said a special provincial executive committee meeting would be held on Monday to discuss the party's performance in the elections, possible coalitions in hung councils and the way forward for the next five years.
“Cape Town is a divided city, that much we need to admit. And if we could first admit just that, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.”
Although the ANC managed 24.36 percent of the vote in the city compared to the DA's 66.61 percent, the ANC increased its control over wards in the city from 32 to 35, snatching two from the DA and gaining control over one of the city's five new wards, ward 114.
Jacobs said the party was pleased with its performances in Khayelitsha, Nyanga, Gugulethu and Philippi, where the ANC won all the wards, as well as its achievements in the Helderberg and Mfuleni/Delft.
But while the ANC licks its wounds, the EFF is buoyant about its progress. The party received more than 79 000 of the 2.4 million votes cast in the city.
“Now that we are in council, no governing or opposition party can escape the considered scrutiny of the EFF,” the party's provincial chairman Bernard Joseph said. “Our councillors will build up a track record of reliability, accountability and delivery all over the province.
“It falls on these councillors to fulfil their historical mission, to be the vanguard of the EFF's commitment to radical change in all communities.”
Cape Argus