South African local by-elections

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Tbh a loss of the more embarrassing members could be good for the DA in terms of being more attractive for black voters in the long run.

[Kosmos]

It hasn't been that long since the local elections, but already the first ward has changed hands. EFF took one in Polokwane from the ANC. It wasn't a big swing, EFF already did well there on 3 August. But still.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2016/11/10/EFF-takes-Polokwane-ward-from-ANC

[ag]

It hasn't been that long since the local elections, but already the first ard has changed hands. EFF took one in Polokwane from the ANC. It wasn't a big swing, EFF already did well there on 3 August. But still.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2016/11/10/EFF-takes-Polokwane-ward-from-ANC

What is the ANC majority now?

[Kosmos]

It hasn't been that long since the local elections, but already the first ard has changed hands. EFF took one in Polokwane from the ANC. It wasn't a big swing, EFF already did well there on 3 August. But still.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2016/11/10/EFF-takes-Polokwane-ward-from-ANC

What is the ANC majority now?

51 seats out of 90.

[Kosmos]

By-elections happen usually every month in South Africa. But they are often not of that much significance. It's hard to determine trends by a few isolated wards. The by-elections, if you can call them that, which took place on November 29th, however, are a bit different.

Metsimaholo, a smaller municipality on the Gauteng border, became the only council in the Free State to be won by the opposition in 2016. This was largely due to the strong position of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF): with a result of almost 18%, well above their national support level, they pushed ANC down from 63% to 45%. A coalition of the Democratic Alliance (DA), Metsimaholo Community Association (a local party) and the Fredom Front Plus (FF+) took over the municipality with EFF support.

But by 2017, the MCA Mayor Sello Hlasa began working with the ANC, going as far as firing the DA members on his mayoral committee and bringing in ANC members instead. In response, the DA and EFF started boycotting council meetings, which collapsed the government; the municipality was placed under administration after being unable to pass a budget and new elections were called for all wards and PR seats.

This new election was made extra interesting by the appearance of the South African Communist Party (SACP). The SACP usually runs under the banner of the ANC, but cracks have widened between the Alliance partners in recent years. The party sees this election as a testing of the waters, to see if they can truly stand on their own. The results suggest that they could.

The elections were pretty much a disaster for the ANC, which saw its support drop from already low levels to about 35%. This meant that the party fell under 50% - and often under 40% - in its traditional strongholds in the townships. They retained all their 16 wards, but often with drastically reduced majorities.

The main opposition DA had a rather bad election as well, if not as disastrous as the ANC's. The party was able to increase its support in the ANC strongholds, but could only register big voter increases in perhaps a handful of voting districts. Elsewhere the growth was marginal. Furthermore, the DA had a bad night with its traditional white suburban supporters. The voter turnout in these areas - while higher than in the townships - was lower than last year. There was also a notable increase of support for the FF+, from 2% to roughly 3,5%. All five wards were retained comfortably, though. In the end, the DA had a small net loss of support from 29 to 28%. This suggests that the party is not growing enough in new areas to be able to afford losses among its traditional constituencies.

The EFF had good growth in some wards, but on the whole only grew modestly to 19%.

It was the new player SACP that truly hurt the ANC this time around, with almost 10% of the vote in its independent electoral debut. However, SACP's performance in the ANC stronghold wards was uneven: in one ward it earned over 30% of the vote and almost became bigger than ANC, while in some others it was even smaller than the DA. But in my opinion, they performed well overall.

I could post detailed results ward by ward, if anyone is interested?

[parochial boy]

I could post detailed results ward by ward, if anyone is interested?

I would be interested.

It's pretty crazy that EFF are supporting a DA/FF+ municipality when you think what Malema normally has to say about white people.

[Kosmos]

I could post detailed results ward by ward, if anyone is interested?

I would be interested.

It's pretty crazy that EFF are supporting a DA/FF+ municipality when you think what Malema normally has to say about white people.

Strange political bedfellows indeed. Although Malema has gone back and forth on how exactly he feels about the whites.

There were many parties competing in the by-elections, and several of them got very few votes. To make this easier for me, I will only include the larger parties in each ward:

Ward 1

ANC 39,50% (-30,23)
EFF 33,06% (+9,63)
DA 13,28% (+8,46)
SACP 7,78%

Ward 2

ANC 58,77% (-10,32)
EFF 17,83% (-4,60)
DA 12,02% (+8,64)
SACP 4,39%

Ward 3

ANC 35,33% (-19,44)
SACP 33,62%
EFF 20,65% (-16,50)
DA 5,38% (+1,50)

Ward 4

ANC 44,36% (-25,5)
EFF 26,99% (+3,74)
SACP 8,83%
DA 7,82% (+3,41)
AIC 6,30%

Ward 5

ANC 58,19% (-2,22)
DA 17,20% (-0,59)
EFF 9,94% (-8,46)
SACP 5,53%
FF+ 3,75% (+1,53)

Ward 6

ANC 44,14% (-12,03)
EFF 25,22% (-1,17)
SACP 14,03%
DA 8,01% (+0,81)
MCA 4,17% (-5,57)

Ward 7

ANC 37,29% (-24,18)
EFF 33,37 (+11,37)
SACP 19,50
DA 4,28 (-2,02)

Ward 8

ANC 49,90% (-16,05)
EFF 24,93 (+2,12)
SACP 11,52%
DA 6,08% (+1,95)
AIC 4,19%

Ward 9

ANC 45,81% (-15,3)
EFF 32,10% (+5,36)
SACP 7,82%
DA 6,77% (+3,89)
MCA 4,36% (-4,53)

Ward 10

ANC 40,51% (-11,80)
EFF 33,62% (+3,06)
SACP 14,31%
DA 5,49% (-0,08)

Ward 11

ANC 45,94% (-8,27)
EFF 25,38% (+8,11)
SACP 11,49%
DA 7,40% (+1,98)
MCA 4,33% (-7,95)

Ward 12

ANC 46,52% (-5,37)
EFF 20,43% (+3,00)
F4SD 16,33%
MCA 4,88% (-20,32)
DA 4,49% (-0,10)
SACP 4,49%

Ward 13

ANC 44,67% (-18,84)
EFF 28,14% (+1,56)
SACP 10,59%
DA 6,61 (+3,55)

Ward 14

DA 74,35% (-4,53)
ANC 8,79% (-2,99)
FF+ 8,75% (+3,33)
EFF 4,43% (+1,36)

Ward 15

DA 69,75% (-4,65)
FF+ 10,24% (+4,49)
ANC 9,60% (-3,85)
EFF 5,70% (+1,12)

Ward 16

DA 81,62% (-3,13)
FF+ 12,15% (+4,52)
ANC 3,50% (-1,84)

Ward 17

DA 50,07% (-3,95)
ANC 18,72% (-10,43)
EFF 11,95% (+1,70)
FF+ 9,68% (+5,04)
SACP 7,40%

Ward 18

DA 82,63% (+0,57)
FF+ 8,07% (+2,35)
ANC 5,58% (-2,69)

Ward 19

ANC 42,33% (-14,50)
EFF 23,80% (-2,15)
DA 16,84% (+3,62)
SACP 12,68%

Ward 20

ANC 38,56% (-5,59)
DA 32,39% (-5,73)
EFF 13,65% (-0,13)
FF+ 8,10% (+6,26)

Ward 21

ANC 42,82% (-19,17)
EFF 34,45% (+12,56)
DA 8,22% (+0,74)
SACP 5,66%
AIC 4,73%