Cape Town mayor to be inaugurated

8 August 2016

Cape Town - The City of Cape Town is getting back to business, with its inaugural council meeting set for Thursday.

Starting at 10:00 on Thursday, the newly constituted council will elect the executive mayor, the executive deputy mayor and the Speaker.

Patricia De Lille is expected to be elected to another term as mayor after the DA got 66.61% of the votes and 154 of the seats in last week's highly charged municipal elections.

The party increased its majority from 61.15% and 136  seats in the 2011 municipal elections.

Because of their majority, has been no need for the DA to cast about for coalitions to survive another term as the leading party in the council. That means it can constitute its council well within the legally allocated 14-day period.

The ANC followed with 24.36% (57 seats), a drop from the 33.17% (72 seats) in 2011.

The EFF will be sitting in the inner circle for the first time, with seven seats, followed by the ACDP with three seats (1.21%, up from 1.06% in 2011, but with the same number of seats due to the seat allocation formula).

Al Jama got two seats (0.66%, up from 0.35% and one seat in 2011).

The following parties got one seat each:

- African Independent Congress (first time the AIC contested the Metro);- Freedom Front Plus (0.41% of the vote, up from the 0.17% in 2011); - Democratic Independent Party (first time the DI contested);- United Democratic Movement (0.26% of the vote, down from 0.38%);- Cape Muslim Congress (0.26% of the vote, up from 0.25% in 2011);- Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (0.25%, of the vote, up from 0.18% in 2011);- Cope (0.25%, of the vote, down from 1.13 in 2011 where it got three seats. Left with one now)- The Patriotic Alliance, whose slogan was " Jou ding moet pyn " (Your thing must hurt), also contested for the first time, and won one seat.PA Cape metro secretary Leon Smith said they would meet soon to decide who would fill the seat.The National Party and the African Muslim Party lost their seats.

This article first appeared on News24, see here.