| The Parties
The ANC is expected to
retain an overwhelming majority in the province
that it has easily held on to since
the first democratic
elections of 1994 when only
three parties secured seats in the Provincial legislature:
Final
results for provincial legislature 1994:
|
Province |
Total seats |
ANC |
NP |
FF |
|
Mpumalanga |
30 |
25 |
3 |
2 |
During the second
democratic elections (1999)
a
total of thirteen political parties contested the elections. The NNP lost
two seats and the FF one. The ANC
won comfortably with
958 504 votes
representing more than
84%
of the total.
Tailing far behind the ANC was the DP with 4.4% of the vote, the NNP 2.4%
the FF with 1.7% and the UDM with 1.4%.
History could repeat
itself in this year’s elections. The ANC
currently
holds 26 seats in the
provincial legislature and the other four parties one each.
1. Cross boundary areas:
- The area between Mpumalanga and Limpopo
province is still officially a cross boundary area, jointly managed by the
two provinces. These include the former "white" towns of Groblersdal,
Marble Hall, Steelpoort, Burgersfort and Ohrigstad, formerly in Mpumalanga
and the "black" townships and rural settlements up to 60 km north in
Limpopo Province.
- During the Local Government elections
these areas were grouped together under one District Municipality (Greater
Sekhukhuni CBDC3 including about four cross boundary local councils. For
the 2004 General Elections the official provincial boundaries will apply,
meaning that the "white" towns will vote in Mpumalanga and the "Black"
areas will vote in Limpopo Province - different voters rolls, candidates,
different provincial IEC's etc.
- These areas are mostly neglected in terms
of service delivery, very disadvantaged and deeply rural.
2. Deaths
- The IEC is concerned about the sharply
decreasing number of registered voters, attributed to the deaths of
previously registered voters. The highest number of voter deaths is in
the FreeState, with Mpumalanga ranking 3rd highest
- IEC suspects HIV/AIDS is the contributing
factor
3. Corruption
- At present 7 out of the 17 Municipal
Managers in the province are either under serious investigation or have
been suspended on charges of corruption. They are supposed to be
appointed as MEOs
- Provincial Electoral Officer Steve Mgwenya
has asked the ANC to help speed up the investigations.
4. Political neutrality
- All the Municipal Managers who will now
act as MEOs are political (ANC) appointed. Not all of them have
previously been trained/educated/academically qualified as town managers,
and rely to some large extend on former town clerks. Most of the former
town clerks (majority white) were academically trained as town clerks. Question:
What is in place to control the objectivity/ professionalism of the MEOs
and their staff?
Traditional Leaders:
- IEC seems satisfied with the current
co-operation with Traditional Leaders, excect one, chief Tikhontele from
the far eastern Lowveld area.
- IEC wants to use their offices as
registration points.
- Premier Mahlangu has given all the Chiefs
government sponsored cars, supposedly to assist them with their
administrative functions, and to empower the traditional offices to assist
with Home Affairs functions in these areas. Chief Tikhontele accused the
premier of bribing, but nevertheless accepted the car! Even a
Tradiotional Leader without offices has received a car!
- We will have to check the views of the Mpu
Trad Leaders with that of the National House of Traditional leaders when
it comes to real election issues - candidate lists, promises, etc
The people - Even though
it is one of the smaller provinces (ome 79 490 km2 in surface area, or 6,5%
of the total land area in South Africa), Mpumalanga has a population of just
more than 3,1 million people (3 122 990 - 7% of the total population)
Some 27%of those aged 20 years
or older have not undergone any schooling, while the population growth rate
is higher than the national average. Only 6% of those 20 years and older
have tertiary qualifications.
The main languages spoken are
SiSwati (30,8%), IsiZulu (26,4%),IsiNdebele (12,1%), Afrikaans (6,2%) and
English (1,7%) (Source: STATSSA)
|
