Are we the best little city in the world? Potentially, yes. Realised, no. Why not?
If we have the natural resource base to be the best little city in the world, why does it seem the city has fallen into a pothole filled with our own waste products?
Who should we blame?
A year ago, I would have argued that our city’s greatest obstacle to a good life was our dysfunctional politics.
We can hire the expensive out-of-town consultants to create the most brilliant analysis, but if those we elect cannot collectively pass a budget or hire a competent city manager, that analysis has greater worth as recycled toilet paper.
It does seem an obvious point.
Nine motions of no confidence in the occupant of the mayor’s seat in three years cannot be deemed a well-functioning politic. But there’s a more fundamental problem.
The basic requirement of the “people shall govern” is that the people freely elect those who represent their interests and those people then govern in their interest.
That isn’t happening in our city. In our city the people do not govern, the minority does.
We must unpack the local government election numbers to understand. Bear with me as we do some number crunching.
In 2016, the city went to the polls. In a city of approximately 1.2 million, roughly 390,000 people placed their mark on a ballot paper.
The DA convinced 178,000 people to elect them, the ANC got 150,000 to endorse their policies. The next closest was the EFF with just under 20,000 crosses on the ballot.
Our mayor Mongameli Bobani’s party, the UDM, had 7,600 saying yes, and our political head of economic development, tourism and agriculture, member of the mayoral committee Marlon Daniels’s party, the PA, convinced just over 1,000 people of his party’s merits.
The city has 60 wards, and every local election we elect a councillor per ward to represent the people of that ward.
In 2016, the ANC won 50% plus of the vote in 34 of those wards, the DA in turn secured a majority representation in 22 wards. Only four wards were decided on less than 50% of the vote gained, two going to the ANC and one to the DA.
We also elect another 60 councillors on a proportional basis, and because the DA convinced 28,000 more people to vote for it than the ANC, it gained the majority of the proportional seats on offer.
When all was done and dusted, the DA obtained 57 seats on council, the ANC 50, the EFF six, the UDM two and the PA one seat.
However, in 43 of the city’s wards the difference between the winning party and the other party was more than a 50% gap. In only three wards is the difference between the two main political parties under a 10% difference.
The people living in each ward of our city were very clear who they preferred to represent their interests.
Compare that to 2011, the previous local government elections, when some 364,000 citizens of our city voted, of which 190,000 voted for the ANC, 146,000 for the DA and some 2,000 for the UDM. Neither the EFF nor the PA existed at that point. At final tally the ANC took 63 seats (34 wards), the DA took 48 seats (26 wards) and the UDM one seat.
Why are the numbers important? Generally, decisions in council require a 50% plus one to pass.
In a full house that means 61 “yes” votes out of a body of 120 councillors to make decisions. So to rule unopposed, a party needs 60 seats.
None of our political parties achieved that in 2016. They need other parties.
At risk of oversimplification, there are four key decision-making positions in our city’s political and administrative team: mayor (political), head of economic development (political), city manager (administration) and chief financial officer (administration). The two key administration positions are currently occupied by temporary standins. The two key political positions may well have permanent occupants for now, but they jointly account for only 2.2% of the city’s voters.
No political system that claims to be democratic allows for a minority to rule the majority. The very purpose of the struggle of the last 367 years was to undo exactly that.
However, in effect, the choices of some 9,000 voters (UDM plus PA) effectively have priority over the choices of some 328,000 persons (DA plus ANC).
No matter what you think of mayor Bobani or MMC Daniels, neither of the two can claim in any way to be mandated by the people.
The people of the city mandated two parties, the DA and the ANC.
But both the DA and the ANC are fixated on the 50+1, they want to rule unopposed.
Neither has up until now considered the other as a feasible partner, and so they allow the minorities to rule.
They’re serving egos, not the people in doing so.
Why not elect a DA councillor mayor? Give deputymayor to the ANC? Give speaker to the EFF?
Split the mayoral team proportionally on the basis of the people’s vote?
Horse-trade over which position is more important than the other.
Or keep playing musical chairs until the next election in the hope of achieving a majority. But our city is broken, and every day it continues to be broken erodes the resources we have.
And there’s no guarantee the people will change their minds in 2021.
Our city’s key problem is not its obvious political dysfunctionality, it’s that we’re unable to work together.
We see the divide, not what unites us.
What should unite us is living in the best little city in the world, but to realise that, we must allow the people to govern, no matter their choice.
● Gary Koekemoer, PhD candidate and Wessa Algoa Bay branch chair