Cape Town - The DA’s Alan Winde was formally elected as premier in a room filled with new and not so new faces during the Western Cape parliament’s first sitting on Wednesday.
The premier hit the ground running announcing that while he is still in consultation on his Cabinet, the 10 people chosen will however be sworn in on Thursday morning at 10am.
"The first order of business is really to put a cabinet in place, and I don't want to waste time, so I will finish consultation this afternoon, and then obviously have to get approval by the party," he said.
Premier Winde then said that after the members of the provincial legislature (MPL) have been sworn in, he will hold a press conference at 11am to announce the new cabinet.
In giving his first press address Premier @alanwinde says he will finish consultation on his cabinet this afternoon and have the 10 person cabinet sworn in tomorrow morning at 10am. @IOL @WeekendArgus #WCLegislature pic.twitter.com/MCU3fwMuY2
— Tshego Lepule (@tshegofatsang) May 22, 2019
— Alan Winde (@alanwinde) May 22, 2019
Winde was warmly greeted by former Premier Helen Zille minutes after taking office.
Former premier @helenzille embraces her successor, @alanwinde minutes after he took his oath of office. #WCLegislature @IOL @WeekendArgus pic.twitter.com/QgjDvhWbOD
— Tshego Lepule (@tshegofatsang) May 22, 2019
The DA’s 1.1 million votes received in the elections means that they earned 24 seats, while the ANC will have 12 and the EFF gets two, an increase from the last term.
Seats in the legislature are calculated using a formula that takes the overall valid votes counted and divides it by the number of seats in the house, with allowance on the side to ensure equal representation.
The Good party, African Christian Democratic Party, FF+ and Al Jama-ah each get a seat.
New kids on the block @ForGoodZA represented by @brettherron who was part of the last batch of MPLs to take the oath. @IOL @WeekendArgus #WCLegislature pic.twitter.com/P5DefgkKst
— Tshego Lepule (@tshegofatsang) May 22, 2019
While proceedings were underway earlier with MPL were being sworn in, Ebrahim Rasool from the ANC Western Cape announced that he declined his seat stating that when we agreed to head election strategy in the province it was never to return to the legislature.