Politics may overshadow legitimate service delivery concerns in Alexandra
Land occupations are pitting residents against each other and some are now using the election to get the attention the authorities
The past week has seen one of SA’s oldest townships, Alexandra, or Alex, shut down by a huge service delivery protest staged against the City of Johannesburg and its mayor, Herman Mashaba. The protest has been an interesting one, playing out a month before general elections and receiving the attention and involvement of the three major political parties, the ANC, DA and EFF. The former is in charge of Gauteng, and the latter two are central to the multiparty local government that governs Johannesburg. Alex itself is a fascinating place, with a proud struggle history, a unique situation and huge development pressures, the latest of which emerge from residents who are unhappy with bylaw management of illegal structures and electricity connections, and with the management of open spaces, parks and refuse collection. These concerns are not dissimilar to those expressed by increasingly frustrated residents of the city’s ward 58, which covers Mayfair, Fordsburg and Pageview. But they are ...
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