Why I split my vote and voted for experience and track record in both instances.
With the local elections nearly done and dusted the slow realisation that we will have another coalition government in Nelson Mandela Bay is becoming a reality.
FFS – Another Coalition:
Make no mistake – the coalition talks began weeks ago.
The DA has burnt bridges with many of their former co-conspirators from the last five years of disaster so the arm touching, hair tossing and air kissing begins again as parties agree to first dates.
Time for the DA and SACP to go on Their First Date:
There are two parties that on paper seemed diametrically opposite: the DA and SACP.
Hear me out:
- The DA has a whiteness problem
- The DA has a ‘back to apartheid’ problem
- The DA is not ‘down with the homies’
- The SACP is like the dog that caught the bus – what do they do with all the support they just received
- The SACP has NO local government experience or track record
- The SACP comes with a ‘communist’ tag – the old ‘rooi gevaar’ of National Party days.
At the moment the ANC and DA are the only parties with Ward seats in council and we can almost with certainty say that the DA and ANC will not be bedfellows.
The DA Needs 51% to form a government.
Other Potential Partners:
Taking the ANC out of the coalition equation that leaves these parties in order of voter support: EFF, SACP, PA, VF PLUS, UDM, MAYIBUYE CIVIC MOVEMENT, ACTIONSA, MKP, MAYIBUYE, ACDP, PAC, ATM, UPPA, AIC, DM, NA, AZAPO, PCAM, GOOD as potential suitors. Together these potential suitors represent 27.51% of the votes counted so far.
On a national level the Democratic Alliance (DA) has explicitly declared that they will not go into a coalition government with: The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and the uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) Party.
Removing those two from the suitors list drops the suitors list down to 21.17% of the votes counted so far.
Lets remove the ones that the DA has had local ‘marital’ problems with in the past: PA, VF Plus, Action SA, National Alliance, GOOD.
Removing those 5 parties from the potential suitors list drops the total available to 13.44% of the votes cast so far.
Add that to the DA’s present 44.44% of the vote and they could easily form a coalition government.
The problem comes in the horse trading around positions in council and, rest assured, the smaller parties will horse trade as if their lives depended upon it – well, their lives do kinda depend on it I suppose!
Here the SACP (3.1% and largest potential coaltition partner), UDM (2.49%), Mayibuye (1.03%),and ACDP (1.02%) will expect MayCo positions for ‘giving up their independence’. Never mind that the voters sent a strong message that they didn’t value them enough.
Box Clever DA – The Race is a Marathon:
And here is where the DA should box clever to solve their Public Relations nightmare of limited acceptance from a rather large black former ANC voting block by leveraging the SACP’s Zonoxolo Wayile’s past experience, street cred and close proximity to the municipal staff by giving him the Mayoral position.
And, along the way, unequivocally declare that the NEW NMB Council and Municipality has one goal – to serve the citizens and employees in a fair and equitable manner devoid of the requirement to belong to any specific political party.
Former Mayor Wayile, despite a DA Motion of No Confidence in 2012, could just be the Christams gift that the DA needs this year.
I am sure, too, that the DA will be willing to forget overlooking Wayile the first time they needed numbers in council to for a government. See: https://mype.co.za/those-elusive-four-votes-how-about-zanoxolo-wayile/. Yes, I suggested the date then already.
At the time I wrote this about the coalition possibilities; “I am surprised that the DA has not mentioned UFEC (The United Front of the Eastern Cape) – the party headed by former Nelson Mandela Bay Executive Mayor, Zanoxolo Wayile – as one of it’s potential ‘partners’. Could this be because they will then be introducing a third mayoral candidate?”
Zanoxolo Wayile for Mayor:
Zanoxolo Wayile rose to the Executive Mayorship of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality in 2009, coming from a deeply entrenched background in the labour movement. Prior to taking office, he served prominently as the Chairperson of COSATU in the Eastern Cape and as a leader within the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA). His ascension to leadership was heavily backed by alliance structures and labour constituents who viewed him as a champion of workers’ rights and working-class communities within the metro.
At the time of Wayile’s appointment I remember distinctly being told by Marion Harning that he was the Mayor who exemplified all that is good in the Freedom Charter and would take the metro back to where it needed to be.
During his tenure, Wayile’s deepest imprint was tied to organized labour. Leveraging his union credentials, he prioritized worker-centric governance, labor stability, and social dialogue. He sought to bridge municipal management with the broader trade union movement, fighting for better working conditions, fair wage structures for municipal employees, and strengthening avenues for worker consultation in municipal policy formulation.
Go back in history and read articles about Wayile on MyPE Here: https://mype.co.za/tag/zanoxolo-wayile/
The Seed Has Already Been Sown:
In a recent strategy meeting that I had with Wayile I recommended to him that he not run his 2026 Mayoral Campaign on all the high level jargon that every Tom, Dick, Harry and wanna be politician focussed on but rather focus on the people in the institution. A Mayor’s job is really to make sure that the municipality runs efficiently and is not a place for internal politics. Our municipal staff need to feel pride and safe in their jobs no matter what political party they support.
There is only one reason why the DA is so efficient in Cape Town – because when they took over they did not get rid of officials and workers carrying the wrong political membership even if they were excellent at their jobs. The DA retained a winning municipal workforce and slowly turned those into DA advocates.
Wayile’s time in office was fraught with severe internal friction within the African National Congress (ANC) and regional alliance politics. He faced persistent factional battles, political infighting, and governance disputes over municipal administration and service delivery. This internal pressure ultimately culminated in his recall by the ANC in 2013, leading to his unceremonious departure from the mayoral office before he transitioned to serve in Parliament.
Experience With the Dogs of War:
We all know now that people in office are subjected to the most horrendous and unexpected pressure from people wanting their jobs and from people wanting to profir from their jobs. Our politicians are shot at, petrol bombed, stabbed, hit with glass jugs, intimidated, bribed and cajoled by crimninals eb=very day of their lives. Wayile was not immune from this and had his fair share of close scrapes.
Driven by a desire to rescue the metro from a deepening governance, political, and economic crisis, Wayile stepped back into the political fray for the 2026 Local Government Elections, standing as the South African Communist Party’s (SACP) PR Councillor candidate (list position 1) in Nelson Mandela Bay. Despite mounting this political comeback with a short and heavily resource-constrained campaign, Wayile and the SACP drove a grassroots-focused message that resonated strongly with disgruntled urban working-class communities, securing a notable and resilient showing at the polls.
Because of his experience in organised labour Wayile has an initmate grasp of what makes workers tick, combine that with a more formal legal and accounting machine known for little (or no) corruption tolerance like the DA and we could see the beginnings of greatness for Nelson Mandela Bay.
Why I am Biased:
Of course I am very biased in that I actually like Zanoxolo Wayile and have a bit of a fan boy outlook especially after being annointed as a PATRIOT during the 2010 Soccer World Cup and attending council meetings with my Soccer Ball haircut.
How the Checkers Teller Reacted:
On Wednesday my teller at Checkers – a young woman of colour – asked me outright whom I had voted for in the local elections.
Great was my delight at her consternation when I told her; “SACP”.
The look on her face as she contemplated why an old white male would vote for a communist party was delight.
Then I tempered the blow by telling her that I had also voted for the DA.
I explained my decision to her by saying that in both instances I had actually voted for the person who had demonstrated the most experience in those postitions and that that is what I hoped to see happen with the next political party in charge – that they would serve the people of this Metro faithfully and according to the wishes of it’s citizens and not their leaders, that one didn’t need to be a card carrying member of any political party in order to get a job, keep a job or advance.
I hope that she voted after, and thank her for having the courage to ask an old white man whom he voted for.
