NCCM loses support to PA but celebrates ANC drop below 50%

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The Northern Cape Community Movement (NCCM) says while it has lost 35% of its support base to the Patriotic Alliance in the elections, it is happy that the African National Congress (ANC) has been brought below 50%.

The NCCM is one of the 24 political parties that contested the elections for the 30 seats in the legislature.

NCCM Chairperson in the province Ronald February says, “In 2021, community movements and independents brought the ANC in the Northern Cape to 50.5 %. When we went out, we said we are going to bring the ANC under 50% in the Northern Cape. And we have achieved that, irrespective of how we performed. We’ve done what we wanted to change, or at least bring an administration where it’s not one colour around the table, there is more than one colour to talk, so now we know at least the ANC needs to talk to someone.”

The NCCM says it has raised an objection with the IEC in the province against the 15 seats allocated to the ANC.

The NCCM says it has a problem with the formula used for the allocation of seats.

There are 30 seats in the Provincial Legislature. Fifty percent of the seats make the Legislature a hung parliament.

None of the parties received an outright majority of 50 + 1% votes. The ANC received 49.34% of the votes.

February says, “We believe that a party that gets less than 50% of the representation of the provincial legislature from what we have allocated or figures looks like the ANC gets 15 seats out of 30, which is not a reflection of how they fair. So we’ve raised an objection, and it’s a principled one because we have long said the formula for allocating seats has not been tested well. Here we can see that that formula is, you know, to the advantage of the bigger party rather than giving a voice to smaller groups. And we hope that the IEC and, if need be, the Electoral Court will consider, How do you give somebody something that they didn’t get.”

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