In a bid to avoid a repeat of the past municipal elections where a voter stayaway in Soweto contributed to the ANC’s electoral defeat in Johannesburg, the party deployed its provincial treasurer-general and former mayor, Parks Tau, to the area late on Monday evening to lure voters.
Indications by late afternoon on voting day showed a low voter turnout of 23,13% across the country and only 23,54% in Gauteng where the ANC support declined significantly in the 2016 and 2019 elections.
Soweto has previously been a traditional voting stronghold of the ANC, but polling from market research company, Ipsos shows that increased support for opposition parties, the DA and the EFF could push the ANC’s support to below 50% in the Johannesburg metro, making Soweto (which has more than 130 wards) a crucial area for any political party that aims to govern the country’s economic hub.
The survey by Ipos that low voter turnout could benefit the DA as voter apathy among traditional ANC voters could produce a stay away.
To ensure that low voter turnout does not hamper the ANC’s chances of regaining the metro, Tau said the “trick is to get people [in the township] out” of their homes to vote before polling stations close at 9pm.
“One of the things we have been communicating is to avoid complacency... It’s also about the proportional representation list so you have to make every single vote count,” he said.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, who cast his ballot at the Hitekani Primary School in Chiawelo earlier in the day, was booed by residents who had gathered outside the school as he made his way into the voting station.
Despite the cold reception from residents who were wearing EFF and ActionSA regalia, Ramaphosa said the party was confident that it would win the metro of Soweto.
“We are getting into a different era of municipal service delivery.... Municipal service issues are going to be very different from now on ... even where it is difficult and when we cannot close potholes, the least we can do is to explain to our people and tell them why we are not able to do it,” he said on Monday.
When probed by journalists about the continuous electricity blackouts that had persisted in the run-up to election day, Ramaphosa said these concerns would be addressed.
“We have made our way around these communities during our campaign period and in all those encounters I was with the mayor [Mpho Moerane] and what impressed me was that he had a notebook the whole time and was seriously taking notes regarding the issues and he will [be] attending to them,” said Ramaphosa.
Chiawelo, where Ramaphosa was raised, experienced electricity blackouts in the week leading up to elections, resulting in frustrated residents barricading roads with burning tyres and large stones to voice their grievances.
Protests began late on Sunday evening, but had subsided by the time the president arrived in the area.
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