Cape Town - In a history-making by-election for the Patriotic Alliance (PA), the party won the ward 56 in Kensington by 1 321 votes on Wednesday.
Following the victory, the PA lashed out at the DA for allegedly saying a vote for the PA was a “proxy vote for the ANC”.
Cheslyn Steenberg is the chosen councillor for the ward, which was previously held by DA councillor, Helen Jacobs.
The party said it was a big moment in the history of the PA.
“We do not accept the DA’s excuse that they simply missed the deadline to contest this ward.
They knew that the people of Kensington are done with them and they were just too afraid to enter the fight from the start.
We have said it before and it is becoming more obvious by the minute: the DA is scared of the PA and the PA’s growth.
“That was why the DA sabotaged its coalition in the City of Johannesburg so that they could blame the PA. They call us names and hope that voters would believe the big lie that a vote for the PA is a proxy vote for the ANC.
A vote for the PA is a vote for the PA and we will always put the future of our children first. They can call us all names that they always do; gangsters, criminals, thieves.
But the by-election results should teach them that insults will not save them from the PA forever,“ they said.
The party said it knew that Steenberg would work “tirelessly to uplift the ward and repay the faith the voters have placed on him”.
Steenberg said eradicating unemployment and tackling the housing crisis were first on his agenda.
“We are going to activate the private sector to table their offering of services to the ward for the young and old, including the offering of skills which will result in employment.
“We are very busy at work with regards to the Kensington tent.
“The other thing is to have the joint housing committee established within the first 100 days.”
“The objective of this committee will be to identify land parcels, including existing homes and developments that have been built to see how backyarders and residents in informal settlements can benefit,” he said.
Responding to questions and the allegations made by the PA in their statement, DA constituency head for iThemba, Chris Fry, said they would continue to serve the ward to ensure that the voters received the services they deserved.
“We also note the extremely low turnout in this election. This is a clear indication that there is not a clear mandate by the voters to the winning candidate. Therefore, although we did not field a candidate in the by-election, we will continue our efforts to serve the ward with two dedicated PR to ensure that the voters receive the services they deserve,” he said.
Kensington community activist, Brian Smith, said they hoped that the new ward councillor would immediately get the ball rolling in dealing with issues facing the community.
“This community has been left disillusioned by the poor performance of the previous DA ward councillors.
“One of the major problems that our community is facing is the lack of provision for social housing for our backyard dwellers and informal settlers.
“Most of the open spaces of land owned by the City of Cape Town are being sold to private developers.
“These developers build flats but the rental costs and the cost to purchase these flats is unaffordable,” said Smith.
Cape Times