Dalphine Tagwireyi
The Lekwa Community Forum (LCF), a local civic organisation, has clinched a major victory over the ANC in the Lekwa local municipality (LCM) in Standerton.
The LCF made history by denying the ruling party a 50% majority in the municipality of Mpumalanga for the first time, after securing six proportional representation (PR) votes.
LCF spokesperson Tsotetsi Skhalo told Scrolla.Africa that this was a major victory, not only for the organisation, but for the people of Lekwa.
“The people went to the election and showed that they are tired of having to drink dirty water because of maladministration at the municipality. They have experienced more than 20 years of no service delivery,” he said.
Skhalo indicated that the ANC’s failure to deliver services to the local community is what drove the LCF’s success in the recent election.
“The people are tired of raw sewage flowing through their homes and eight hours of daily load-shedding has become the norm, driving major businesses away.”
Lekwa municipality was placed under administration in May and the council was dissolved, with a debt of over R2 billion owed to Eskom.
The ANC in Lekwa clinched 13 seats dropping from 20, the DA got four from the previous five, while the EFF got two dropping from three. The African Transformation Movement got one.
ANC Mpumalanga spokesperson Sasekani Manzini said that they are confident of clinching several other municipalities in the province, as they are still leading and votes are still being counted.
Mpumalanga, which was declared a violence hotspot before the elections, lost a tent that was reported missing at Thembisile Hani voting station on Sunday.
The IEC reported on Tuesday that electoral officials were ambushed in Bushbuckridge on Monday night.
“Fortunately, the ballot papers had been counted and the signed slip confirming this was on the person of one of the officials when they fled the scene, no one was harmed. This act of criminality did not compromise the votes from the ward,” said the commission.
Image source: @LekwaCommunityForum
