Roughly 440 voting stations still to conclude the counting, auditing and verification process, according to the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC). But the state of play shows the DA across the province has 64.58% support against the ANC’s 24.5%.

The situation in Cape Town is a definite DA blue: 71.09% of votes were cast for the national opposition party which, however, governs the city, and the Western Cape since 2006 and 2009 respectively.

The ANC’s tally stood at some 20%. However, this may yet change significantly as traditionally the votes from township areas, which the ANC counts as its strong holds, is usually the last to be captured.

In the 2011 local government election, the DA won 60.92% of the vote against the ANC’s 32.8%. Just days before the municipal poll, incumbent Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille told Daily Maverick, she had her sights set on increased voting support.

ANC mayor candidate Xolani Sotashe arrived at the provincial results centre, upbeat. “We defended our base… We reclaimed wards the DA won in 2011 (municipal poll). We are just monitoring the trend,” he told reporters. And if the ANC loses? “We accept whatever outcome… But it’s not done yet. It’s a democracy. People have spoken.”

But for now the verified results show the DA in control of four of the Western Cape’s 30 councils – one metro, 24 local municipalities and five district councils – while the ANC rules none. The DA holds 197 seats in total, both ward and those it gained through the proportional representation ballots, while the ANC has 80 seats, none in wards.

Premier Helen Zille is smiling (broadly) on Thursday morning. “It (the results) proves where people have experienced the DA difference, they want more of it,” she told Daily Maverick at the Western Cape IEC results centre.

“We’ll take Beaufort West,” Zille added. With 96% of the votes counted, the DA has 49.25% of votes against the ANC’s 42.23%. The DA taking the council, would mean a key loss for the ANC: Beaufort West is the economic hub in the Karoo, centred along the key N1 transport route between Cape Town and Johannesburg and further north.

Late Wednesday evening, ANC insiders were not terribly optimistic. In an initial assessment it emerged voter turn-out had been low, even in traditional strongholds. Potential voters left it late in the day, or actually early evening, to make their way to voting stations; many did not make it past the 7pm closing time.

However, according to News24, the ANC is claiming Laignsburg, another municipality in the rural hinterlands of the province, although according to the vote count a coalition would be necessary as neither the DA or ANC have hit the 50 plus one threshold to govern single-handedly.

Elsewhere in the country, the DA also celebrated boosting its grip on Midvaal council in Gauteng, where the party successfully fought of a demarcation rejig. The ANC had vowed to take over the municipality – the only one in Gauteng with the DA in charge – this time round, as the nationally-governing ANC did in 2011.

The 2016 local government election focus remains on South Africa’s eight metros, which control the largest budgets, and have the biggest populations. The DA has set its sight on gaining at least one other metro, with Nelson Mandela Bay in the crosshairs. However, metro results traditionally are the last to be announced by the IEC. DM

Photo: Reuters