The Congress of the People (COPE) says it is optimistic that it will perform in the local government elections. This despite not making a showing yet on the national results leader board as the results are tallied from Monday’s local government elections.
With just under 60% of voting districts counted, party electoral candidate for the City of Johannesburg, Colleen Makhubele, says it is too early to write off the party.
“They haven’t really counted where we have been strong as COPE. We have been putting all our efforts for campaigning [in provinces] like Gauteng, Northern Cape, Free State and Limpopo. So those numbers are also coming. But also when we look at the statistics to say in 2019, by this time with about 40% to 45% counted, we were looking at 7 000 votes.”
“Right now it was 28 000 when I left the desk. I am sure we are more than that and it is just a ripple effect of the work. We have been doing [well] in our strong provinces where we have been campaigning,” says Makhubele.
COPE remains optimistic
EFF in Free State confident it will perform well
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in the Free State says it was hoping that it would collect more votes than it did, but many of their supporters, and would-be voters, were not able to vote on election day.
The current count shows that the party could be the main opposition in Mafube, Nala and Mohokare municipalities.
EFF provincial secretary, Bosanku Msimanga, says many young people were turned away from voting stations.
“We would have performed much better if those young people who were turned [back] in their large numbers on Monday. [They] were not given a chance to vote. But we are extremely excited, extremely confident about what is happening. What we are seeing as EFF it is only now that the numbers that are trickling is where EFF has performed well,” adds Msimanga.
Talking possible coalition with EFF’s Omphile Maotwe
DA in Mpumalanga satisfied with its performance
Mpumalanga Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Jane Sithole has expressed satisfaction with how the party is currently performing. Sithole says their main goal is to ensure that the ANC doesn’t attain above 60% in the province.
She says they want to reduce the ruling party’s representation to below 50% in some municipalities.
“We are looking for growth. We want to dismantle the majority that is going on in the province. Mpumalanga is called the ANC stronghold. It is one of the provinces where they got more than 80%. For this election we want to bring them below 60% in terms of the province,” adds Sithole.
Crunching the numbers: Mpumalanga has a 39.6% voter turnout
