ANC rejects DA push for new Knysna elections

The ANC’s Victor Molosi region has urged the DA to accept the 2021 municipal election results, rejecting the DA’s motion for new elections.

This follows a statement from DA constituency head for Knysna, Ryan Smith, who announced that the party had proposed dissolving the Knysna Council to facilitate new elections.

“We submit this motion as it is the only remedy to the over-fragmentation of the current council make-up, which has rendered it impossible to elect and sustain a stable majority government with the interests of the residents of Knysna at heart,” Smith said.

The party said through the motion they wanted to bring an end to the current ANC/PBI/PA/EFF coalition which it claimed “has ushered in the rapid collapse of service delivery in Knysna, inflicting untold damage on both its residents and the surrounding environment”.

“A dramatic drop in water quality and supply, electricity outages, the collapse of refuse removal and sewerage and waste water management, have placed the very lives of Knysna’s residents at peril.

This collapse in service delivery is due to the incompetent, unqualified, and unsuitable appointments made by the current coalition government since September 2022, which the DA had successfully declared unlawful and reversed through successive court action,” Smith said.

“The fact that Knysna has once again been voted Best Dorpie in the KFM Best of the Cape Awards is a testament to the Greater Knysna Business Chamber, the town’s residents, NPOs, and volunteers.”

In response to the DA’s move, ANC regional spokesperson Victor Molosi Moyisi Magalela said they rejected the motion.

“The DA must accept the 2021 results. The people of Knysna voted the way they did and did not give a single party (power) to govern on its own. The problem here is you have a political party that does not understand how democracy works.

“They claim to have been constructive but that is far from the truth. They have always been a disruptive opposition party.

They were in a coalition with PA, KIM and EFF and we never called for dissolution of Council but we became a constructive opposition,” Magalela said.

He said the challenges in Knysna did not start in 2023.

“The DA led a rates and tax boycott by calling on residents to go on a go-slow in paying for their services so that we could not deliver on our constitutional mandate.

“On issues that could have been resolved in council, they quickly run to courts and waste municipal resources that could have been directed towards service delivery.

If they were so excellent they could have had an outright majority in 2021 but did not and that is because of their poor service delivery record. They must wait for 2026 LGE.”

The speaker did not respond to requests for comment on the motion by deadline on Monday.

Cape Times