Revenge of the has-beens: Ace, Hlaudi, Fransman win seats in councils - News24
Former SABC COO-turned-party leader Hlaudi Motsoeneng and former ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule have secured council seats in Free State municipalities through their respective political outfits.
So has former Western Cape ANC chairperson Marius Fransman, whose People’s Movement for Change (PMC), won eight seats scattered around the country.
Magashule and Motsoeneng’s parties will have representation in some of South Africa’s most distressed municipalities, as identified by the Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA), Tsakani Maluleke.
Motsoeneng’s African Content Movement (ACM) won 17 seats in the province, while Magashule’s African Congress for Transformation (ACT) won 11 seats.
ACM seats are largely concentrated in Maluti-a-Phofung, a troubled municipality, where the party secured 15 seats and came out as the second-largest party there. The council is led by the ANC with 29.62% of the votes. The DA came in third at 18.95% of the votes.
This means Motsoeneng’s party will be central in coalition talks and the formation of a new government.
The party’s two other seats are in Nketoana, where ACM received 11.04% and came third.
Magashule, who was implicated in state capture and corruption at the Vrede Estina Dairy Project, ran as his party’s mayoral candidate in Ngwathe Local Municipality. He appeared as the ward 14 councillor candidate on the party’s list of nominated candidates submitted to the IEC.
His party, ACT, received two seats in Matjhabeng, one in Setsoto, and one in Nketoana; four in Ngwathe; and one in Moqhaka, one in Metsimaholo, and one in Maluti-a-Phofung.
Matjhabeng Local Municipality is located in the Lejweleputswa District Municipality and covers Welkom, Allanridge, Hennenman, Odendaalsrus, Ventersburg and Virginia.
The Setsoto Local Municipality is situated in the Thabo Mofutsanyana District and covers four towns: Ficksburg, Clocolan, Marquard and Senekal.
Nketoana is also in the same district and covers Reitz, Petrus Steyn, Lindley and Arlington. Ngwathe Local Municipality is in the Fezile Dabi District Municipality and covers Magashule’s hometown, Parys, as well as Heilbron, Vredefort, Koppies, and Edenville.
The Maluti-a-Phofung Local Municipality is also in the Thabo Mofutsanyane District Municipality and includes QwaQwa, Harrismith, and Kestell areas.
Fransman, who formed his party in 2023 after he left the ANC following his suspension due to a claim of sexual assault by his former assistant, received 0.11%, or 33 181 votes, in its debut local government election.
In 2019, the National Prosecuting Authority withdrew the case after Fransman and his accused signed a mediation agreement.
The party has won eight single seats in Kouga (Eastern Cape), Johannesburg (Gauteng), Kamiesberg (Northern Cape), Cape Town, Drakenstein, Knysna, Laingsburg and Beaufort West.
The party is gearing up for coalition talks, as it has one seat in Laingsburg, Beaufort West and Knysna, placing it in contention to join coalitions, as all three municipalities are hung. Fransman said the party would meet on Monday and Tuesday to discuss its options.
The PMC’s offering to society is that if co-governance is implemented, it “must be to create the equilibrium for stability, not equilibrium for kingmakers”.
“For example, Beaufort West [has] had eight mayors in five years. Knysna had five or six consistent motions of no confidence in five years. The PMC is against that,” he said.
The parties’ priorities included a stable government, service delivery, and listening to the will of the people in terms of vote share.
“So we’ll be looking at negotiations and coalition options through that lens,” he said, and will tell other parties to reduce focus on personalities and party-political interests.
Stable governance in coalitions, argued Fransman, “is only possible when we take the personalities away”.
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