Independents ensured an ANC win

The recent ward 58 by-election tells a very sad story. Now that the elections are over, one can do a proper evaluation of the results. The DA contested in 4 Johannesburg by-elections in total on 2 July 2014. Only ward 58 was lost by the DA. However, unlike the ANC, the DA doesn’t believe that a “win is a win”. The ANC may have won the ward but it scrapped through with a meagre 113 votes; this equates to only a 0.4% victory. Clearly, this ANC “victory” isn’t as victorious as it would like to imply. The reality is that independent candidates, particularly Ricky Nair, openly expressed throughout the by-election campaign that they didn’t give a hoot about the community but was there simply to “split the vote”. For what reason? I fail to understand this. Perhaps he could tell the community. All that he was able to achieve was deliver the ward back to the ANC on a platter. We will now have to endure the non-performance and shocking behaviour of yet another ANC councillor. This by-election again taught us the same old lessons we know so well: every vote counts, small and “independent” (as if there is such a thing) are simply a waste of a vote and split the vote usually ensuring that a bad party gets elected; as was the case in this election. Certainly, the DA is saddened at loosing this ward particularly with a candidate that would’ve made an excellent councillor that would finally start serving the community and sorting out the problems in the area. However, I know that the DA is now more determined than ever to work as hard as possible to serve the community and to ensure that next time voters will not have the election robbed by the ANC as has happened this time.