Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe has announced that the next local government elections will be held on 18 May.
He made the announcement just days before the final voter registration weekend, ensuring that citizens were aware of the urgency of ensuring they were indeed eligible to vote.
Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe has announced that the next local government elections will be held on 18 May.
He made the announcement just days before the final voter registration weekend, ensuring that citizens were aware of the urgency of ensuring they were indeed eligible to vote.
A date announcement was all that was needed to formalise the campaigning that is already in full swing. We have published several articles about ANC ward committee meetings in the process of electing ward candidates, and in this particular edition we have a report about independent candidates who plan to contest the elections under the Mind banner.
These election preparations, together with a probable flurry of meetings and rallies, make up the foundation of democracy.
Some will argue that local elections embody more closely the spirit of democracy, because you can vote for a person who you know, and who might know you.
This form of representation is more direct than in a national or provincial election, in which you merely cast a vote for a list of candidates drawn up by party heavies horse-trading in private.
Our front page picture shows Eastern Cape Department of Social Development and Special Programmes MEC, Pemmy Majodina, receiving a grateful hug from a child whom she had just given a school uniform.
In her address to the grateful families of Makana Municipality, she said that distributing uniforms and stationery could not be construed as electioneering.
This was an interesting claim to make, because at that meeting, not a single person had levelled such an accusation against her.
Why would she make a point of telling people that she was not doling out presents in exchange for votes?
Perhaps she was responding to her guilty conscience, or perhaps it was an act of blatant cynicism – pre-empting accusations that Majodina knows she deserves.
Is it really the Social Development MEC’s job to dish out desperately needed uniforms and stationery?
If she was so keen to get the material to the pupils, why did she not send a delivery van? Why did she distribute all the goodies and then urge residents to register for the elections?
This is nothing more than the crass abuse of power.
