The battle for the Cape will start in the province’s rural wards and end in the metro shortly before the 2014 elections, says the ANC.
|||Cape Town - The battle for the Western Cape will start in the province’s rural wards and end in the metro shortly before next year’s elections, says the ANC.
This comes after two senior DA members in the Berg River (Piketberg) Municipality - ward councillor Dirk Adams and DA ward chairwoman Hillary Afrikaner - on Monday resigned and defected to the ANC.
Adams and Afrikaner tendered their resignations via fax at 9am.
Hours later, at a press conference at the ANC’s provincial headquarters in the city centre, the two were welcomed into the party by ANC provincial chairman Marius Fransman.
Adams, the councillor of Bergriver’s ward 5, said he left the DA because the party had “lost touch with the voters”. He said the DA refused to provide services to people staying in mission stations along the West Coast.
“They say it’s private land and they can’t deliver services to us. They have even notified us that they will stop the refuse removal service because the ward is part of a mission station.”
“As the councillor I could no longer just sit and watch how services are taken away from my community by the party I was representing. They also took away funding that was supposed to have gone to upgrading and building sports facilities.”
Afrikaner said she had resigned “in solidarity” with Adams. “I simply could not go ahead with a party that does nothing for the people,” she said. “I don’t expect anything from the ANC. I’m doing this simply as a principled decision.”
Adams won the ward for the DA in 2011 with 51.41 percent of the vote.
Fransman said Adams and Afrikaner’s resignations were the first of many expected defections from the DA over the next few months.
“We are going to take back these wards, starting in the rural areas, one after the other,” Fransman said.
Responding to the defections, DA provincial leader Ivan Meyer, pictured, who is also the province’s Sport MEC, said: “It came to my attention on Friday that the ANC is busy negotiating with (Adams) to resign and in exchange for this the ANC will offer him financial assistance.
“We accept his resignation and we will fight and win the by-election.”
The ANC denied that it paid Adams to resign.
Fransman said the DA was “becoming desperate” and “fearful” ahead of the elections. “We have more than 6 000 volunteers signed up and will start in the rural areas, taking one ward after the other from the DA,” he said.
Meyer said the ANC should “get its organisation in order” before planning any comeback.
Meanwhile, the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) and Cope have also started preparing to take part in next year’s elections.
Cope provincial leader Mbulelo Ncedana said the party would meet this weekend to “strategise”. “There’s been many internal battles and Cope hasn’t managed to fulfil its promises to the people.Cope’s leaders need to unite and swallow their pride.”
ACDP Western Cape chairman Grant Haskin said: “We’re aiming for 85 000 votes next year. We will hold our national conference in September.”
clayton.barnes@inl.co.za
Cape Argus
