South African municipal election, 2006
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The 2006 South African municipal elections were held on March 1, 2006, to elect members to the local governing councils in the municipalities of South Africa. The municipalities form the local government of South Africa and are subdivisions of the provinces, thus making them responsible for local service delivery, such as electricity, water and fire services.
All major political parties, excepting the SACP who are members of the Tripartite alliance, fielded candidates in the election. The expected winner, the African National Congress (ANC) won the majority of seats nationwide, with 66.3% of the vote. These elections were seen as a test of the ANC, after some discontent with the speed of the delivery of new services at the municipal level in South Africa. The official opposition, the Democratic Alliance (DA) took 14.8% of votes nationwide, placing them in second overall. The Zulu-based Inkatha Freedom Party took 8.1% of the vote, or third place, while the new party formed under the leadership of Patricia de Lille, the Independent Democrats took 2.0%, placing them fourth of all major political parties.
However, due to the fact that rural electors have an additional vote compared to urban voters (for district council), a fairer representation of popular party support is given by the percentage of proportional representation votes (excluding district council votes and ward votes) i.e. African National Congress (ANC) with 65.7% of the vote, the Democratic Alliance (DA) with 16.3% of votes nationwide, Inkatha Freedom Party with 7.6% of the vote and 2.2% for the Independent Democrats.
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[edit] Campaign
The campaign focused around the delivery of services, particularly to townships after 12 years of democracy in the country. Riots and large-scale protests had broken out before the elections in certain townships around the country. All parties promised to speed up delivery of services.
[edit] Results
The ANC won a majority in most of the councils of Northern Cape Province, North West Province, Gauteng Province, Mpumalanga Province, Limpopo Province and Eastern Cape Province.
The DA won the largest share of votes in the City of Cape Town, but did not achieve a majority, and hence is not able to form a government on its own. The DA mayoral candidate Helen Zille formed the city government and was elected mayor with the support of numerous minority parties. This was achieved in spite of the Independent Democrats siding with the African National Congress.
The Inkatha Freedom Party won the majority in KwaZulu-Natal Province, although it lost support overall, when compared to the previous election [5], and did not win the major economic centres in the province [6].
[edit] Detailed national results
| Party | Ward | % | PR* | % | DC* | % | Total | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| African National Congress | 6 314 393 | 64.1% | 6 469 420 | 65.7% | 4 683 135 | 70.8% | 17 466 948 | 66.3% |
| Democratic Alliance | 1 595 742 | 16.2% | 1 608 154 | 16.3% | 684 884 | 10.3% | 3 888 780 | 14.8% |
| Inkatha Freedom Party | 740 135 | 7.5% | 744 486 | 7.6% | 635 521 | 9.6% | 2 120 142 | 8.1% |
| Independent Democrats | 204 846 | 2.1% | 217 761 | 2.2% | 108 305 | 1.6% | 530 912 | 2.0% |
| United Democratic Movement | 100 352 | 1.0% | 129 047 | 1.3% | 105 105 | 1.6% | 334 504 | 1.3% |
| African Christian Democratic Party | 122 478 | 1.2% | 128 990 | 1.3% | 74 918 | 1.1% | 326 386 | 1.2% |
| Pan Africanist Congress of Azania | 108 741 | 1.1% | 109 816 | 1.1% | 88 190 | 1.3% | 306 747 | 1.2% |
| Vryheidsfront Plus | 92 039 | 0.9% | 93 921 | 1.0% | 66 293 | 1.0% | 252 253 | 1.0% |
| United Christian Democratic Party | 55 604 | 0.6% | 62 459 | 0.6% | 60 755 | 0.9% | 178 818 | 0.7% |
| Minority Front | 42 255 | 0.4% | 42 530 | 0.4% | 0.0% | 84 785 | 0.3% | |
| National Democratic Convention | 32 250 | 0.3% | 35 899 | 0.4% | 25 312 | 0.4% | 93 461 | 0.4% |
| United Independent Front | 25 072 | 0.3% | 31 018 | 0.3% | 19 431 | 0.3% | 75 521 | 0.3% |
| Azanian People's Organisation | 25 773 | 0.3% | 30 321 | 0.3% | 18 533 | 0.3% | 74 627 | 0.3% |
| Independent | 263 991 | 2.7% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 263 991 | 1.0% | ||
| 84 smaller parties | 133 403 | 1.4% | 148 058 | 1.5% | 48 197 | 0.7% | 329 658 | 1.3% |
| Total | 9 857 074 | 100.0% | 9 851 880 | 100.0% | 6 618 579 | 100.0% | 26 327 533 | 100.0% |
* PR=Proportional representation DC=District Council
[edit] Geography
The map to the right shows the winner in each of the 237 local municipalities.
- ANC in green won 203 municipalities
- IFP in red won 26 municipalities
- DA in blue won 7 municipalities
- Laingsburg Gemeenskaps Party in yellow won only the Laingsburg local municipality
- The grey areas show the District management areas which are outside local municipalities (largely game reserves)
