This week’s municipal by-elections, the last before the local government election scheduled for late October, saw the Democratic Alliance (DA) lose a number of wards, while the African National Congress (ANC) held fairly steady.
Wednesday was another bumper day for by-elections, with forty being held.
The ANC retained 27 wards, gained three, and lost one. By contrast, the DA retained six wards and lost four, two to the ANC, and two to the Patriotic Alliance (PA). The Inkatha Freedom Party retained one ward in Nqutu in northern KwaZulu-Natal and snatched a seat off the ANC in Pongolo, also in KwaZulu-Natal.
The DA defended four seats in Johannesburg and lost three of them, two to the PA and one to the ANC. The other seat it lost – to the ANC – was in eThekwini.
The ANC’s other gain came in Bushbuckridge in Mpumalanga, where it won a seat off the Better Residents Association (BRA). The BRA used to be dominant in the municipality, but has fallen away in recent times, with the ANC being the primary beneficiary.
The continued slide for the DA in wards where coloured people make up a significant number of voters will be a concern for the party.
In a ward in Tshwane, the DA was also pushed hard by the Freedom Front Plus (FF+). In this by-election, in Faerie Glen, the FF+ saw its vote share jump from the 4% it won in the 2016 election to nearly a third on Wednesday, with the DA holding on with 65%. However, this was the only ward that the FF+ contested on Wednesday, meaning the party could concentrate its energy and resources there. Nevertheless, these results show that the DA could be under pressure to retain its vote share among coloured people and white Afrikaners, which could signify trouble for the party in the run-up to the October poll.
Overall, the ANC will be happy with the results. The DA will be less so, although it held on to a number of marginal wards, which will give it some heart.
The Economic Freedom Fighters again failed to win any wards and failed to present any major challenge to the ANC on Wednesday.
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