Quinton Mtyala
THE ANC hopes that a new candidate selection process will help it make a dent in the DA’s hold on the City of Cape Town while also allowing it to take charge of the province’s smaller municipalities.
Out of the 30 municipalities in the province, the ANC only has majorities in Cederberg and Matzikamma, and controls seven councils in coalition with smaller parties.
In the City of Cape Town, where almost 70 percent of Western Cape voters live, the ANC recorded only 32.44 percent of the votes in the 2011 local government elections.
The party is expected to make an announcement on its mayoral candidate in January and party insiders have remained mum on possible names.
Tony Ehrenreich who was the ANC’s standard-bearer in the city in 2011, says ultimately the party will decide but he has not ruled himself out. “Media coverage, campaigns, and engagements should provide some idea on the team’s effectiveness. You have to look at whether we exposed issues related to the City, in order to gauge performance,” said Ehrenreich.
ANC provincial secretary Faiez Jacobs, who is also the party’s provincial (candidates) list convenor says it will look at all names forwarded from the party’s branches and screen them for suitability for inclusion as candidates.
Jacobs said the ANC planned to compete in all 400 wards in the Western Cape.
“We’re going to put up candidates in all areas. Traditionally, we have not fielded any candidates in the middle class and formerly white areas. But we’re going to contest the DA in their own backyard.
“So we’re looking for candidates, professionals of integrity and people that are willing to serve, whether its inside the organisation or outside,” said Jacobs.
But unlike the DA, Jacobs said the party would not advertise for candidates and would still, mostly, have to go through a branch selection process.
Jacobs believes that untapped pockets of support for the ANC existed among “progressives” who had in previous elections been written off by the party.
The farcical situation in which the recent SA National Civics Organisation (Sanco) provincial conference was held at Pollsmoor prison was blamed on the often violent contestation for positions on the ANC’s local government election list.
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