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ANC needs ‘deep reflection’ as Nquthu swings with the IFP

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Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa campaigns for the ANC at Nquthu ahead of the May 24 by-election. Picture: Siyanda Mayeza
Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa campaigns for the ANC at Nquthu ahead of the May 24 by-election. Picture: Siyanda Mayeza

The Inkatha Freedom Party has won a landslide victory in the hotly contested by-election for the Nquthu Local Municipality in northern KwaZulu-Natal, winning 14 of the town’s 17 wards and ending 10 months of political turmoil in the previously hung council.

Voters in the town, which falls under the Mzinyathi District Municipality, gave control of Nquthu back to the IFP despite a massive campaign by the ANC’s national and provincial election machine to swing the poll in favour of the governing party, which took the remaining three wards.

In total, the IFP – which took 56.27% of the vote – now holds 19 seats on Nquthu’s 33-seat council compared with the ANC’s 10.

The DA holds two proportional representation seats on the council, the NFP 1 and the EFF 1, with the IFP now free to govern without coalition partners. The rest of the 14 parties which contested the poll failed to get enough votes to secure a single council seat.

The result is a massive blow for the ANC, which had hoped to use the by-election caused by the dissolution of the council election last August – which made eight failed attempts to elect a mayor and executive – and its coalition partner the NFP.

The ANC/NFP coalition had deadlocked with an IFP/DA/EFF alliance, with infighting in both the EFF and NFP over the councillor choices and a series of High Court actions bringing Nquthu to its knees.

ANC spokesperson Mdumiseni Ntuli said that the party “notes and accepts” the outcome of the election, but said however that this did not mean that the process in the build up to the poll was “without problems and challenges”.

Ntuli said the party would accept “the will of the people”.

Ntuli said that IFP supporters had been involved in threatening – and in some cases assaulting – ANC supporters in ward four wards – five, six, 12 and 14 – and that the ANC hoped they would be brought to account for their conduct.

However, Ntuli congratulated the Independent Electoral Commission for running a free and fair election and thanked the ANC activists who had contributed to the victory in the three wards the ANC took.

“The cornerstone of our democratic dispensation is that people must have a right to determine the government of their choice using democratic means provided for in our constitution. Therefore the ANC sincerely congratulates the IFP for their resounding success in these by-elections,” Ntuli said.

“We welcome the results of the by-elections as legitimate, despite our concerns,” he said.

Ntuli said the ANC recognised that it had suffered setbacks in some of the wards it had taken last August and that this needed “deep reflection”.

He said the ANC provincial and regional leadership would “patiently and lucidly” analyse the results to respond to “whatever challenges that might have led to a declining support” for the party.

IFP provincial leaders Blessed Gwala said the party was “jubilant” over its “resounding victory”.

Gwala said the IFP had been “quietly confident” that it would win the election because local people had “seen through the maladministration and false promises” of the previous ANC/NFP administration and trusted the IFP, which had governed up to 2011.

“We went to the electorate with the simple message of trust and they responded with confidence. We did not campaign using state resources and grand promises of service delivery,” he said.

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