Pretoria – Although the African National Congress suffered reduced support in Tshwane, the party did all it could in the highly contested metropolitan municipality, mayoral candidate Thoko Didiza said on Saturday.
“If you look at results across Gauteng, no party got an outright majority, it was a serious contest and I think we did our best. No one went beyond the outright majority mark,” Didiza said on the sidelines of the Electoral Commission of SA’s (IEC) results operations centre in Pretoria, where the 2016 local poll results would be formally announced.
The DA wrested party majority in Tshwane from the ANC. The metro experienced mayhem in the run up to the elections when residents embarked on violent protests against Didiza’s mayoral candidacy. Residents of Atteridgeville, Mamelodi, Soshanguve, and Hammanskraal said Didiza was not known in Tshwane and had been catapulted by the ANC leadership over incumbent mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa and his regional deputy chairman Mapiti Matsena. The DA will have to form a coalition with another political party in Tshwane in order to govern.
Didiza said coalition negotiations in the city had already started. No political party had taken a stance to not talk. “Discussions are ongoing, in negotiations we can only pronounce later if there is light at the end of the tunnel… for now the tunnel is wide open.” She would not divulge which party the ANC was negotiating with.
African News Agency