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President Cyril Ramaphosa has called on political leaders to put aside their differences and work together in the spirit of partnership.
He made the call in his remarks at the IEC’s Results Centre in Tshwane on Thursday night, after the IEC declared the 2021 Local Government Election free and fair.
The results reflected the low voter turn-out, with the IEC saying more than 12 million of the over 26 million eligible voters cast their ballots on Monday.
In his address Ramaphosa said the people have spoken and those in whom they have placed their trust, the elected councillors, now need to get down to work.
He said local government must be a force for good, for development and for progress.
“If we are to make this a new and better era, we, as leaders, must put aside our difference and work together in the spirt of partnership.
IEC chairperson, Glen Mashinini, said they were satisfied that, barring a few incidents for which the Commission had apologised, it had delivered quality elections.
“We are proud to proclaim to the world that we are still flying high the banner of electoral integrity, excellence and free and fair elections,” he said on Thursday night.
Mashinini said across the country the African National Congress (ANC) clinched the majority seats in 161 municipal councils, followed by the Democratic Alliance (DA) with 13 municipalities, which is closely followed by the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) which now holds majority seats in 10 municipal councils.
He said there were 66 hung councils, where no party achieved an outright majority. These included hung councils in five of the country’s eight metropolitan municipalities, including Nelson Mandela Bay.
The ANC won Buffalo City and Mangaung outright, while the DA took the City of Cape Town.
In a lengthy post-election statement, DA leader John Steenhuisen, announced 11 “non-negotiable” principles that he said would underpin any coalition agreement.
“In its negotiations, the DA is prepared to speak to everybody, but not to act out of desperation. It is better to be a good opposition than part of a bad coalition,” he said.
The message voters gave us in Nelson Mandela Bay, Tshwane and Johannesburg confirmed the lessons we’d learnt in those metros over the past five years around coalition agreements and the conditions that need to be met for such governments to work.
This can be summarised as: “Never let short term advantage get in the way of longer-term objectives”.
