On Monday 19 August the Democratic Alliance (DA) in Knysna tabled a motion to dissolve the Knysna Municipal Council. Should this receive a majority vote when it is brought to council, it will mean fresh local elections will be held in the municipality.

Knysna’s ANC have publicly rejected the motion even before it has been considered in council, suggesting that the DA needs to accept the 2021 Local Government Election results and wait until the 2026 vote if they feel they could win Knysna.

“The problem here is that you have a political party that does not understand how democracy works,” said the ANC Regional Spokesperson Moyisi Magalela.

Calling for new elections is a bold move by the opposition party, as there is certainly no guarantee that they would be victorious in such polls, and could even end up with less seats than the eight they currently hold. Whilst the DA did receive just short of 51% of the votes in Knysna in this year’s National Elections, that does not mean this figure would be the same when voting for local leadership.

But a statement issued by the DA’s Constituency Head for Knysna Ryan Smith shows no hesitation with regard to putting their cards on the table and going ‘all in’.
“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,” it reads. “We have considered every potential configuration under the current council make-up, and there is simply no pathway to a stable majority government for Knysna. The only way to rescue Knysna is for fresh elections to be held where a clear DA-majority can be elected that will no longer be vulnerable to instability as a result of the political opportunism and self-interest of unreliable coalition partners.”

Magalela believes this argument holds no water.
“They (the DA) claim to have been constructive, but that is far from the truth, they have always been a disruptive opposition party with assistance from MEC Bredell,” he says, “The challenges of Knysna did not start in 2023, they are challenges of decades, from when the DA was in charge, the old infra-structure is a fact, not an excuse.”

But Smith’s statement lays the blame for what it calls ‘rapid collapse of service delivery’ at the feet of the current ruling coalition of the ANC, PBI, PA & EFF, saying it has inflicted untold damage on both its residents and the surrounding environment, and reminding readers of the collapse of Knysna’s refuse removal services in December 2023, which led to full scale intervention by provincial government.
“The DA has done everything to constructively engage the Mayor, municipal manager/s, and senior officials to ensure that Knysna is salvaged from further collapse. Instead, our relentless efforts have only been met with constant excuses of infrastructure collapse and sabotage, and no will or desire to action effective long-term plans to address the town’s rapid collapse,” it states, continuing “The reality is that Knysna is too fragmented to elect a stable majority government under the current council configuration. The only way to resolve this problem is to dissolve the municipal council, call for fresh elections, and elect a DA majority government to bring back stable government and service delivery excellence to rescue Knysna.”

Magalela parries “We are not surprised that the DA would make such a desperate move in the face of what is actually happening on the ground. It is abundantly clear that the DA wants to play politics with the lives of the residents of Knysna.”

Whilst at time of going to press it was still to be confirmed when this motion will be put to the vote, it is presumed that it will be too late to go on the agenda for this Thursday’s Council Meeting.