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| Candidates for Lenasia Ward 9's By-Election at a celebratory event hosted by the Proudly Lenasian group on Saturday, 7th September 2024. The late MK candidate Farhaad Mitha was sadly not present at this event due to his illness. |
On the morning of Tuesday, September 10th 2024, with election fervour in Lenasia at its peak, residents awoke to the tragic and heartbreaking news that the MK party’s Farhaad Mitha had sadly passed away after a short illness.
Mitha was MK’s choice to contest the Lenasia Ward 9 By-Election scheduled for Wednesday, September 11th 2024. He was a popular person across Lenasia, with years of activism and humanitarian efforts to his name. On social media, there was an outpouring of condolences and eulogies to Farhaad Mitha who was described as a caring man with a gentle demeanour and a heart of gold. Mitha’s funeral is expected to occur later on Tuesday with Janaza prayers at the Avalon Cemetery after 2pm, and the Lenasia community’s in a deep state of shock by the unexpected passing of this well-loved activist and candidate for Ward 9’s currently vacant councillor post following the recent resignation of Al Jama-ah’s Imraan Moosa.
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| The late Farhaad Mitha. Seen here is a pre-election campaign item he submitted for print to Lenasia Times describing himself and his party. |
The MK party are yet to release a statement on their candidate’s passing. Despite Mitha’s untimely death, the Lenasia Ward 9 By-Election is still expected to proceed as planned with special voting occurring on Tuesday and regular voting on Wednesday. The other 8 candidates contesting expressed their grief, sorrow and condolences at the passing of Farhaad Mitha; these included either videos, messages or voice notes by the likes of DA’s Muhammed Yaeesh Cassim, AM4C’s Kuraysha Jackson and ARM’s Haroon Amien.
Poignantly published above is a pre-election description of Farhaad Mitha and his party’s goals for Ward 9 that was recently printed in the End-August 2024 edition of Lenasia Times. Our publication and its staff express our heartfelt condolences and immense sorrow at the passing of Farhaad Mitha. May his memory always endure and inspire the people of Lenasia.
The renowned Shireen Ebrahim of the Proudly Lenasian group paid a heartfelt tribute to Mitha on Facebook, writing: “A sad day for the residents of Lenasia as we bear the news of the passing away of a community hero, an activist a brother, a friend, and an inspiration—Farhaad Mitha. Farhaad was more than just a councillor candidate; he was a humanitarian with a heart full of compassion, dedicated to serving others. Despite his illness, he attended debates and continued to fight for the betterment of our community, embodying strength and enthusiasm in the face of adversity. His unwavering commitment to his principles and the people he cared for leaves a lasting mark on all of us who had the honour of knowing him. His legacy remains—a legacy of love, service, and humility.
“May Allah SWT grant him Jannatul Firdaus, and may his dedication to the community be a light for all of us to follow. Rest in peace, you will be deeply missed.”
Election - DA to win it!
In terms of the Lenasia Ward 9 By-Election, many Lenasians are wondering what would its outcomes be like. Lenasia Times Editor Waseem Camroodeen undertook a prognostic effort where he did a detailed analysis of the recent South African National Election (held on 29th May) results for Ward 9, at its 8 voting stations. He explained this was done to produce a reasonable prediction of who might likely win the Ward 9 by-election.
Camroodeen explained: “Due to the lack of accurate and efficient polls for this election, or any other precise metric, the only recourse I had to obtain something substantive for a predictive analysis was to look, in great detail, at the stats from the recent national elections which were like a de facto poll itself.
“I applied the following system whereby I placed the contesting parties into two general camps based on similar political outlooks or voter preferences. So, for those parties who are in some sense similar, though not identical to the ANC, I placed them in what’s called a ‘Yellow Camp’, whereas those parties who are similar, though not identical, to the DA, I placed them in a ‘Blue Camp’. The ‘yellow’ parties included the likes of ANC, MK, EFF and Al Jama-ah. The ‘blue’ parties included the likes of DA, ActionSA, ACDP, Rise Mzansi, UIM, PA and Freedom Front Plus.
“I looked at the exact voting figures of all 8 voting stations for Ward 9 for these parties and found that since most or all of the ‘yellow’ parties were contesting Wednesday’s election it meant that there would be a vote split there. Whereas on the ‘blue’ side, since only the DA was contesting, it gave them an advantage as it meant most of the other ‘blue’ parties votes would come their way instead. When I added up all the numbers and applied the factor of a lower voter turnout (arbitrarily 45%) as compared to the national’s actual turnout (66%), I found that the DA would comfortably win by almost 700 votes from Al Jama-ah.
“However, with the changed situation now, where we sadly lost our dear brother Farhaad Mitha, there could be a slight change in favour of the ‘yellow’ parties as some MK votes may go their way. This could take any one of the three parties closer to the DA although not enough to likely produce a win.”
Without going into great detail, the system applied by Waseem Camroodeen was as follows whereby for the top three parties of Ward 9 from the recent 2024 national elections (namely Al Jama-ah, DA and ANC) he would total up the votes they obtained in the three categories of voting (National, Regional, Provincial) and then divide it by 3 to obtain an average from that particular voting station. Example, at the Civic Centre, the Democratic Alliance received 509, 440 and 496 votes in the three respective categories; adding up these three figures and then dividing the answer by 3 gave the average voter inclination towards the DA at the Civic Centre of 481. Camroodeen then did similar for Al Jama-ah and the ANC as well as for the so-called 6 ‘blue’ parties who’ve sat out this upcoming by-election. He then added all 8 voting station averages to obtain final figures of Al Jama-ah in first with 3346 votes, followed by DA in second with 3242 votes and ANC in third with 2584 votes. He then however added all the ‘blue’ parties votes averages from the 8 stations to the DA’s total giving the DA now a renewed total of 4369. This was done on the rather simplistic assumption that those voters who went with ‘blue’ parties in the national elections, would in all likelihood go too with the DA for this upcoming by-election.
After obtaining these renewed totals which placed the DA ahead, Camroodeen then applied the mathematical concept of ‘linear interpolation’ to extrapolate predictive results based on an expected 45% turnout for this Ward 9 By-Election.
The final results had the DA winning with a score of 2978 votes, Al Jama-ah in second with 2281 votes and ANC in third with 1761 votes.
Camroodeen did however caution that: “This is just a prediction, based on the best possible way I could think how, based off the national stats. It does not account for how people may view the individual personalities contesting as each resident’s opinions of a candidate may differ from one another. Nor does it, understandably so, factor in the unpredictability of an election or the surprise element that’s always there. So, people should bear this and numerous other factors in mind when looking at my predictive analysis here. But it’s the best publicly disseminated predictive analysis I can think of so far and I don’t say this boastfully as I honestly have not seen any equivalent thus far out there. View it as you please.”
In light of the MK candidate Farhaad Mitha’s death and going on the assumption that some MK votes may hypothetically now go towards the other ‘yellow’ parties, the predictive model showed that it wouldn’t be substantive enough to augment the numbers for the ANC, Al Jama-ah or the EFF, with the DA still having enough of a comfortable margin to win the by-election.
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