Ward 67 residents say they will not vote for Geraldine Gordon, and a DA member is saying it out loud

Residents of Ward 67 say they do not want Geraldine Gordon as their councillor again, and one of them has put his party membership on the line to say so days before the local government elections.

Sidwell Kweba, a community activist from Phumlani Village and a registered Democratic Alliance member, has publicly refused to vote for Gordon, the party’s incumbent councillor in the ward. He did it in a social media post and then again in his own words, and he framed it as a residents’ position rather than a personal one.

“I remain to say that as a resident of Ward 67 and a DA member, I refuse to vote for Geraldine Gordon,” Kweba said. “She expects the residents and DA members to vote for her again just because we are DA loyalists. We have held talks with the residents of Ward 67 and we are all saying the same thing: that we do not want her as our councillor in Ward 67.”

Ward 67 takes in Phumlani Village, Lotus River, Eagle Park and parts of Grassy Park. The demands residents have put on the table are concrete and local. They want a new school. They want recreational facilities. They want waste removed regularly. They want the communal toilets improved.

Those demands are the substance behind the political noise. A school and recreational facilities are the kind of thing a ward councillor is expected to champion inside the City of Cape Town, and waste removal and communal toilets are the services residents see and smell every week. When residents say they do not want a councillor again, that list is what they are measuring her against.

Kweba’s break with the party line is the sharpest version of a question every ward in the country faces at this election: whether a councillor is answerable to the party that put them on the ballot or to the residents who live with the results. He says party loyalty should not mean automatically backing a candidate when residents are unhappy with their local representation.

Gordon has answered it directly and without heat. She says voters are entitled to decide who represents them.

“Our Constitution allows people to vote for whoever they want, and that is completely fine by me,” she said. “Residents are entitled to make their own choices. At the end of the day, it makes no sense to respond to every single person who says they will not vote for me.”

She said the campaign should be fought on the issues rather than on what she called sensationalist claims.

As IOL reported on 4 November, Kweba made his position public in a post in which he wrote that he is a DA member in Ward 67 but refuses to vote for Gordon, and that she is not his councillor candidate. That report also noted earlier concerns raised by residents about local facilities and service delivery, including a separate dispute in which New Horizon residents in Pelican Park called for improved housing conditions.

What the ward-level argument opens up is the accountability question that outlasts any single election. A councillor sits in a party caucus and answers to a party structure, and a councillor also holds a ward and answers to the people who queue for the toilets and wait for the refuse truck. When those two pull in different directions, the ballot is the only place residents can settle it, and they settle it without needing the party’s permission.

For DA members in Ward 67, Kweba’s stand forces a choice they may have preferred to avoid. They can vote the party line, or they can follow the residents’ list. Kweba has made his own choice public and put his membership behind it.

The election is days away. What happens to the ward after it will depend on how many residents in Phumlani Village, Lotus River, Eagle Park and Grassy Park share the view Kweba has now stated out loud, and on whether the next councillor treats the school, the facilities, the waste and the toilets as a list to be worked through or a list to be explained away.

The Enquirer is following the Ward 67 contest through the vote and will report the result and what residents say about it once the count is in.