Durban – SACP central committee member Buti Manamela on Friday thanked South African citizens who voted in the local government elections, especially those who voted for the ANC.
The senior ranking SACP member, who has been an ANC MP since 2009, said it was time for the leadership to listen to its people.
“We say thank you to all South Africans who voted, especially those who voted for the ANC. But honestly, with these local government elections, we’ve had small weddings and big funerals as the ANC and the broader alliance.
“The people have spoken. The leadership should listen,” Manamela said on his twitter account.
Malignant corruption, persistently high rates of unemployment, inefficient service delivery and economically crippling power outages were at the centre of the ANC local election campaign.
But the ruling party lost its majority, obtaining 46% of the vote nationally, 36% in Gauteng, 20% in the Western Cape and 41% in KwaZulu-Natal. The ANC has been on a downward trajectory in terms of voter support since the 2011 local elections, according to the IEC’s figures.
In KZN, the ANC lost its majority vote in the eThekwini Municipality, the province’s only metropolitan area, which may see coalitions between political parties being formed soon in order to govern the city. The ANC has 42.02% and 96 seats in eThekwini.
In Tshwane, the ANC received 35% of the votes, while the DA had 32%, indicating that both parties experienced a drop since the 2016 elections when they had 43% and 41%, respectively.
In Johannesburg, the ANC has 91 seats with 33.60%, a decline from 121 seats in 2016. ActionSA appeared to have emerged victorious in Joburg, after it secured 44 seats, despite the party being formed in 2020.
In the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality in the Eastern Cape, the ANC attained 42 seats with 39.43% of the vote.
Political Bureau