DURBAN — Local government election fever is hotting up across the country, with political parties ramping up their campaigns to win over the electorate with promises of better service delivery.
On Monday, the main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, announced its mayoral candidates for the country’s big metros ahead of the local government elections on October 27.
But glaringly missing from the announcement was the mayoral candidate for the eThekwini Municipality, the third-largest metropolitan area in South African with a budget of more than R52 billion.
Although the official line from the DA is that it has adopted a ward- and constituency-based election strategy, party insiders allege it is an attempt to sideline eThekwini leader Nicole Graham.
Graham, who ran for the position of leader of the DA in KwaZulu-Natal earlier this year but was beaten by Francois Rodgers, is seen by many as too abrasive and too ambitious.
The move not to appoint a mayoral candidate was taken by the KZN Provincial Executive Committee and then the Federal Executive.
Asked why she was not nominated by the DA for the eThekwini mayoral position, Graham said she did apply for the position, but the party decided against it.
“It is a party’s decision whether or not to run a mayoral candidate in the city. Nevertheless, we will continue to campaign, and I am confident that we are running a great campaign that will yield good results, regardless of whether we have a mayoral candidate or not,” she said.
Observers, however, say the DA’s move not to appoint a mayoral candidate for eThekwini could be seen as the party giving up on winning the metro.
Dean Macpherson, chairperson of the DA’s KZN Provincial Executive Committee, said this was not the case, and the decision not to field a mayoral candidate was due to the “political dynamics in the metro”.
“We are focused on a ward-based strategy to field and profile councillors who the electorate will be directly voting for. This ties into our recently adopted campaign to unite, rebuild and protect communities after the recent unrest which is being led by our councillors and candidates. With the strong emergence of ANC breakaway independents, this is even more crucial to build on the 10 extra wards we won in 2016,” he said.
He said the KZN Provincial Executive Committee met in April to adopt a campaign plan that would focus on a ward- and constituency-based election strategy “aligned to the unique political opportunities that exist in the province and metro”.
Asked whether the DA in KZN had lost confidence in Graham, Macpherson said: “The DA has all the confidence in Nicole Graham, which is shown by her inclusion recently in the Provincial Executive Committee as the leader of the DA in eThekwini. She is the leader of our largest caucus in the province, as well as being on the eThekwini Executive Committee. Her track record of tackling corruption and some of the biggest names in politics speak volumes and is a testament to her political tenacity.”
DA leader John Steenhuisen told a media briefing that the party was looking at a ground-up strategy in eThekwini that entailed mobilising the community to win as many wards as possible.
“We believe that eThekwini is going to be eminently interesting after the election because of the factional battles within another party that is in control of that particular municipality, and we will obviously assess that as the campaign unfolds. But for now, our focus is on getting as many voters registered and making sure that we get them to the polls, and we win as many boards as possible,” he said.
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