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Are the mayoral candidates important? A few weeks ago, I probably would have answered this question very differently because I did not believe that they could really make a difference.
But then the ANC broke with tradition and announced their mayoral candidates in the major cities, leaving out the name of the candidate for Tshwane.
This immediately made everyone aware that the faction fights inside the ANC in Tshwane were rather serious.
However, the party still deemed it important to announce the candidates for the other cities, settling uncertainty in places such as Johannesburg and Nelson Mandela Bay.
A day later, the announcement came that Thoko Didiza, a former minister of agriculture, was to be the ANC’s candidate to take over as mayor of Tshwane in place of Kgosientso “Sputla” Ramokgopa.
This sparked a wave of violence in the city – the inhabitants of Tshwane left no doubt in anyone’s mind that they did not agree with this decision, and chants including “No Sputla, no vote” were heard.
Thus, are the mayoral candidates important? The right answer is probably that they can be.
In Nelson Mandela Bay, a highly dysfunctional executive was removed and Danny Jordaan was put into the position as mayor about a year ago.
This was probably an inspired decision as Jordaan has a devoted following and enjoys credibility as the leader of the group that brought the 2010 World Cup to South Africa.
The issues of corruption were addressed and surveys show that the people of Nelson Mandela Bay still regard Jordaan very highly.
However, his appointment did not settle all issues in this area – parents in the northern parts of the city still protest about education and the availability of adequate schools there, and a few days ago, a group of inhabitants chased the ANC volunteers out of KwaZakhele (a year or so ago, an action like this would have been unheard of). Even Bheki Cele left the area in a hurry and abandoned his scheduled speech.
In Tshwane, the mayor-to-be went on the campaign trail with President Jacob Zuma, and eNCA polls show that the ANC recovered some of the support it lost during the violent interlude a couple of weeks ago.
This does not mean that the people of Tshwane are happy to accept Didiza as mayor – there are still sporadic reports of unrest in the capital. We should be able to see in the next week or so if the situation is normalising.
However, if there is more violence just before or on election day, it can hurt the election performance of the ruling party.
In Johannesburg, the reports – and the polls – are showing that Parks Tau was doing a good job as mayor of the city, but it is probably also the area where the choice of mayor will have the least influence.
The official report released this week about the “score card” of developments in Johannesburg over the past five years did not have any influence on the current support for the ANC (as measured in the eNCA poll).
It is evident that voters want to see service delivery in their own areas and are not very concerned with the speeches made by current (and future) mayors.
Harris is a political analyst and managing executive of public affairs at Ipsos SA
