Ipsos poll puts MK Party on 55% in eThekwini ahead of local elections - IOL
UMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) is hoping national chairperson Mxolisi Ewart Phakathi will become the mayor of eThekwini after polls indicated that the party will get majority vote to govern the city.
Hopes are high within uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) that its national chairperson, Mxolisi Ewart Phakathi, will be elected eThekwini mayor after the November 4 local government elections, at least, if the recent polls are anything to go by.
Phakathi is crossing the city’s suburbs, townships and rural areas with a spring in his step after the latest Ipsos poll showed the party would win KwaZulu-Natal's economic hub with 55% of the vote.
The multinational market research and consulting firm released its report after interviewing 3 600 people across the country, between June and July, and reported that MKP “remains largely a KwaZulu-Natal phenomenon”.
If Ipsos’s poll is true, MKP in its first local government election, will unseat the ANC, which has ruled eThekwini since 1996. According to Ipsos, the ANC now has only 10% voter support in the city. The poll showed the DA with 17%, IFP with 6%, ActionSA with 4 % and the EFF with 3%. Smaller parties made up 5% of the vote
This reporter was unable to talk to Phakathi on Friday, as he was busy campaigning.
However, MKP provincial spokesperson Mkhuseli Mlengane said the party believed Ipsos’s findings, and that Phakathi was ready to hit the ground running after the elections.
He said the party nominated Phakathi, who is also a Twelve Apostles' Church in Christ pastor, as the city’s mayoral candidate because of his personality and political experience. Phakathi is a former African Transformation Movement member of the KwaZulu-Natal legislature.
“Apostle Phakathi is very capable. He is a pastor and a man of integrity,” said Mlengane.
He said the media had tried unsuccessfully to find Phakathi’s hidden skeletons.
“He is a hard worker who has an open door policy and is always willing to be engaged,” Mlengane said. “We are confident that he has the expertise to transform eThekwini people’s lives."
He said the MKP had assigned Phakathi to deal with the city’s water and sanitation problems and bring the city back to its former glory as a clean tourism attraction.
“Our immediate task is to ensure that we give city residents an uninterrupted water supply. The city spends lots of money buying water from uMngeni-uThukela Water, and loses 60% of that water to leakages and burst pipes because of ageing infrastructure,” he said.
He said under Phakathi, water tanker mafias would be dealt with decisively “as they are crippling water supply in eThekwini”.
Mlengane said the dirty CBD and residential areas are a concern.
“We will ensure that the city is constantly cleaned up and transformed back to what it used to be as a tourist destination,” said Mlengane.
He said the city is currently facing corruption when it comes to employment, which will be addressed under Phakathi’s administration.
The city recently experienced shocking murder incidents, including 12 people killed in a mass shooting at the Ziko area outside KwaMakhutha, south of Durban, on September 22 in what is believed to be drug-dealing-related competition among gangs.
Mlengane said Phakathi’s task will be to deal with the issue of uncontrollable violent crime.
“It is to ensure that we partner with police and ensure that we increase the capacity of Metro police for additional police visibility in areas identified by national police crime stats as hot spots.
“We will also have to look at reviving community police forums as one of the important arms in combating crime,” he said.
Ipsos noted that MKP’s dominance in eThekwini would not require the former president Jacob Zuma-led party to govern through coalition.
“Currently, only MK shows a strong dominant position in eThekwini, suggesting that many metros are headed for coalition governments,” said Ipsos political analyst Mari Harris.
However, Ipsos warned that this should not be interpreted as a prediction of the outcome.
“There is still much campaigning to do, many voters to persuade and many arguments to have before South Africans cast their ballots,” read the statement.
Harris added, “Social and political research is not an exact science, and findings are true for the time of fieldwork, taking the margin of error into account.”
KwaZulu-Natal ActionSA leader Zwakele Mncwango said his party will accept the result and continue with its opposition role in the city if the MKP wins.
But he does not see the MKP getting the majority to govern the city alone.
“I don’t want to talk about predictions, but I am talking about the reality on the ground: there will be no party governing alone in eThekwini.
“We must face the reality of South African politics: we have entered a phase of coalition arrangements, which is what voters want as they have moved away from one-party majority. I don’t see MKP getting 50% plus one, but I see possible coalition arrangements,” said Mncwango.
University of KwaZulu-Natal political analyst Zakhele Ndlovu said that although polls are not always accurate, there are possibilities that the Ipsos survey is on the mark.
"I think the 55% is quite possible because around the eThekwini townships, MKP is very, very popular,” said Ndlovu.
