Durban - KwaZulu-Natal DA leader Francois Rodgers says that the party has made big strides in the province after its good performance in the uMngeni Local Municipality where it is expected to win with an outright majority and run the council.
In its election campaign the DA had set its sights on Umngeni, a municipality in Howick, just outside the provincial capital Pietermaritzburg, even launching its provincial manifesto in the area last week.
“It’s still early days, the results are not in yet, but clearly it’s showing that the DA is making huge inroads into KwaZulu-Natal, we indicate that 15 ANC wards have fallen to the DA across the province. The bulk of those is six in eThekwini, two in uMsunduzi, one in Howick, two in KwaDukuza and one in Ugu.
“It’s looking good for us on the ground and as the results come in we hope that the numbers will increase,” Rodgers said.
Video: Samkelo Mtshali/IOL Politics
The latest figures on the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s website show that the DA is currently on 61.42% of the vote in uMngeni where it has accumulated 24 982 of the counted votes so far in comparison to the ANC’s 12 576 votes which makes up 30.92% of the counted votes.
“We’re absolutely delighted, we said, and I made it quite clear, that on the 2nd November we would wake up and we would govern our first municipality in KwaZulu-Natal, that’s still our target. Obviously I don’t want to jump the gun, but the indicators are there that we've done extremely well,” Rodgers said.
samkelo.mtshali@inl.co.za
Political Bureau