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Fransman assault case turned Western Cape women against ANC, say party leaders, as they try to make sense of the spectacular defeat it suffered at the polls
The ANC performed dismally in the Western Cape, failing to clinch an outright win in any of the 30 councils it contested across the province.
Now the governing party’s hopes of having a controlling share in the councils will depend on what it can offer smaller parties as it enters into talks with them about forming coalitions in five hung councils.
The DA thrashed the ANC in the City of Cape Town, where it has increased its vote from 61% in 2011 to 66.6% in this election.
The ANC managed just below 24.3%, down from 32.8% in 2011. The Economic Freedom Fighters scored 3.17%, which translates to seven seats.
For the first time since the democratic dispensation, the ANC did not win Beaufort West.
The party also lost four other councils: Matzikama, Cederberg, Cape Agulhas and the district municipality of the Central Karoo, which it had governed for the past five years.
There was still some horse trading yesterday afternoon with regard to certain municipalities, including Kannaland, Hessequa, Laingsburg and Prince Albert.
“I can confirm that we are talking to the smaller parties in terms of forming coalitions. The PEC [provincial executive committee] will meet on Monday and after that meeting, we will be able to say more about the way forward,” said Western Cape ANC provincial secretary Faiez Jacobs.
In Cape Town, the ANC increased its wards from 31 in 2011 to 35 in this election, but it lost significantly with regard to the number of proportional representatives, following its failure to field candidates in some of the city’s wards.
The overall tally of its councillors now stands at 57 [proportional representatives and ward councillors], compared to 71 seats won in 2011.
“We started from a low base and if you factor in the national issues, our decline is not so significant. It is ... much smaller when compared with Nelson Mandela Bay or the Gauteng metros,” said Jacobs.
The poor voter turnout in the ANC strongholds did not help the party, either.
ANC provincial spokesperson Jabu Mfusi admitted that the party’s failure to win Beaufort West was because of its own mistakes. However, he declined to say what those mistakes had been.
“It is painful to lose a municipality that you had won before. Those are our areas. The extent to which we lost is a serious pain. Please allow us to deal with this pain collectively,” he added.
Party leaders could not put a finger on what exactly went wrong, but theories abound.
Officially, the decline in the province was explained as being part of a national trend.
“We have not done as well as expected, but it is a national trend, especially in the metros,” said Jacobs.
However, the DA had also grown in even the poorest areas of Cape Town.
The ANC won all the wards in the black townships around the city. Despite these losses by the DA, it still made considerable headway compared to the last local government election.
Western Cape Premier Helen Zille, who is the DA’s former national leader and who now works as part of its support staff, said: “It is incredibly important to look at where we are coming from in these areas, and how we have grown in them.
“We have grown from, like, 1.5% to 5%. It is not great, but it is four times more than we had before.”
Zille spoke out against what she called “a race card” that was played by the ANC.
“Race is the only card the ANC has. They said this election is between black and white. If you say this is between black and white, you say policy is irrelevant, principles are irrelevant,” she said.
“And you are saying that one must always be captured in the colour of your skin, irrespective of policy choices ahead of you; [that] you must just choose solidarity with your skin colour. But more and more people are seeing through this,” added Zille.
A Western Cape ANC leader, who was involved in the party’s previous election campaigns, said the Seskhona People’s Movement – whose leadership worked with the DA in this election – contributed to the DA’s growth in black wards in this election.
The leader, speaking anonymously, blamed his party’s controversial list process – which saw a number of protests directed at the ANC’s own offices in the city – for having played a role in the ANC’s decline.
The ANC started its election campaign without its two most senior provincial leaders: Jacobs and chairperson Marius Fransman.
Fransman was suspended after a sexual assault charge was laid against him and is still out in the cold while the party investigates his alleged conduct.
Jacobs returned to office only in April – four months before the election – after the ANC found him guilty of assaulting a party researcher.
His 18-month suspension was only then suspended.
The Fransman issue debacle overshadowed the ANC’s campaign and highlighted the factional lines in the provincial ANC.
“Marius has cost us dearly,” said another senior ANC leader, also speaking anonymously.
“We had a huge boycott vote from women. Women are very angry at how the ANC has handled his issue,” he said, adding that women, especially in white and coloured areas, did not hold back during the door-to-door campaign and would grill ANC activists about this.
“They said: ‘We have daughters, and we can’t believe that the ANC sides with Marius.’”
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