The ANC and the DA performed well during Wednesday’s by-elections that saw 15 political parties battle it out for 23 seats spread across the five provinces of KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, Limpopo, Northwest, Mpumalanga and the Free State.
The DA registered landslide victories to retain 14 wards that became vacant as a result of councillors resigning.
One of the DA’s strongest showing was in Ward 7 of the JB Marks Local Municipality under the North West’s Dr Kenneth Kaunda district where it secured 94 percent of the votes, up from 68% in 2021 with the ANC managing only 2 percent in the two-horse race.
It was largely the battle of the older parties with uMkhonto Wesizwe being the only recently formed party contesting. The Jacob Zuma-led party snatched a ward 14 of Ray Nkonyeni Municipality in Ugu district, KwaZulu-Natal. The impressive victory by MK takes the number of its councillors in the province to 2 with the 3rd being in Rustenburg where it also took a ward of the ANC.
“We said 4 days ago that Pat Madlala is the incoming Ward Councillor of Ward 14 Ray Nkonyeni Municipality in UGU Region, KZN. He’s now the Councillor with a decisive victory! Viva,” said National Organiser Floyd Shivambu in a reaction on social media platform X ( previously Twitter)
MK also recorded good results in SRC elections in several institutions of higher learning where it gave both the EFF Student Command and the ANC-aligned South African Student Congress ( SASCO) a run for their money and displaced many smaller campus based formations.
While SRC elections were previously insignificant, recently the student vote is among the most sought after as parties compete for the youth vote.
MK is the only party to win in by-elections when it hasn’t had the opportunity to contest in full local government elections. The party is using the by-elections as a springboard towards the 2026 poll, expected to be fiercely contested.
The IFP and Al-Jamah which each had a ward to lose in KwaZulu-Natal and Johannesburg respectfully recorded impressive numbers as they retained their seats.
All of the parties that contested recorded some significant gains including the Patriotic Alliance and the EFF which both did not win seats but secured increased votes in most of the wards they contested.
While the ANC and the DA are the only ones that contested in all wards and had the most to lose had the results gone differently, most of the smaller and newer political parties that took part in the national and provincial elections held on May 29 did not feature in yesterday’s by-elections.
Several of them have already aligned themselves with MK P and this week the party said it expected more of such outfits to close shop and join its ranks by the end of the year.
“Four political parties have collapsed to join the MK Party and before the end of this year there are going to be more political parties with seats in Parliament that are going to join the MK Party,” said Shivambu who himself from the EFF last month.
Infighting has been blamed for the ANC defeat to MK with insources claiming the oppositionist nature of internal contestation in the party meant that those who’s preferred candidate did not make the ballot were bitter and ended up not campaigning for the party and possibly helping MK.
“The squabbles are costing us, there’s no other reason why we lost that ward. It’s the same as in Rustenburg ( North West’s Bojanala district where MK P took a seat of the ANC last month) where seemingly a faction was allowed to impose its candidate on the ANC when the community had overwhelmingly endorsed a different candidate. This has been happening for years and until we address it our people will keep shifting their support to these questionable formations,” said an ANC National Executive Committee member from Gauteng who spoke on condition of anonymity.
ANC Gauteng Provincial Secretary TK Nciza concurred with the NEC member adding that is why the PEC he leads alongside Premier Panyaza Lesufi who is the provincial chairperson, have been consistently visiting the three areas of Soweto, Mogale City and Lenasia where there were three by-elections.
“You saw people there in the Northwest were complacent thinking it’s a done deal only for MK to upset the situation. We did not want to experience that hence even our choice of candidate is a young person who is loved by the community and has already been intervening to resolve many service delivery issues working with our councillors in the City of Joburg. You have to field such people as candidates so that people don’t say ‘who is this’ or ‘ but we don’t trust this one,” said Nciza while campaigning in Soweto on Wednesday ( the day of the by-elections).
The good performance by the ANC is expected to boost morale in the party following the devastating setback it suffered on May 29.
