MARCH BY-ELECTIONS
IFP trounces ANC again in KZN, sweeping three Newcastle wards, while ruling party defies Gauteng naysayers
The IFP took three wards off the ANC in Newcastle, KwaZulu-Natal, to become the largest party in the Newcastle council. The ANC had dominant wins in two rural by-elections and retained a key ward in Emfuleni, Gauteng.
KwaZulu-Natal
There were four by-elections in KwaZulu-Natal. None of them included the uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party. Despite its ominous absence, it was still important to see how these by-elections affected the seat allocation of the respective councils and how parties like the ANC, IFP, EFF and Team Sugar are readying themselves for the MK election foray. It was also important to consider voter turnout and whether MK sympathisers might cast their vote for independent candidates in two of the Newcastle wards.
Newcastle, Amajuba
Newcastle is the largest municipality in the Amajuba District and is one of the key centres of economic activity in northern KwaZulu-Natal. It is known for its steelworks, cement industry and chrome chemical production. The district also includes Dannhauser and eMadlangeni (Utrecht). The IFP took a ward off the ANC in February to consolidate its hold on the mayoral chain. The IFP is supported by a local party, Team Sugar, the DA, ActionSA and the Freedom Front Plus (FF+).
Ward 12 (Blaauwbosch) Newcastle, Amajuba: IFP 61% (23% PR) ANC 24% (31% PR) Team Sugar 8% (12% PR) Ind-Molakeng 4% EFF 3% (14% PR) APEMO <1% (<1% PR) TRUTH <1%
The setting: Blaauwbosch is east of Newcastle, between the townships of Madideni and Osizweni. The IFP won a ward off the ANC in Osizweni in February.
The 2021 local government elections: The ANC beat the IFP by 278 votes on the ward ballot. The margin was lower on the proportional representation (PR) ballot, with the ANC getting 209 more votes than the IFP. The ANC won two of the three voting districts in 2021, with the EFF carrying the Cebelihle Primary School district.
The PR ballot is used for comparison because an independent candidate came fourth on the ward with 12% of the vote. The independent took votes away from all parties, but slightly more from the IFP.
The by-election: The ANC ward councillor who served as deputy mayor of Newcastle in the previous council term of office resigned from the council. The ANC, IFP, EFF and Team Sugar were joined by an independent regional party, the African People’s Movement (APEMO), and the Truth and Solidarity Movement (TRUTH) on the ballot. The voters’ roll grew by 10% between the local government elections and this by-election.
The IFP won Ward 12 by a landslide in the by-election, beating the ANC by more than 1,200 results. It swept all four voting districts and was only challenged by the ANC in one of the districts. Team Sugar climbed one place from fourth to third, but still lost a third of its support in the ward. The EFF fell from third to fifth place. The IFP took votes from the ANC, the EFF and Team Sugar in this ward.
Poll: 52% (49%)
Ward 19 (Madadeni F, L) in Newcastle, Amajuba: IFP 59% (21%) ANC 28% (29%) Team Sugar 7% (28%) EFF 7% (16%) TRUTH <1%
The setting: This ward is east of Newcastle, near the airport and next to the cemetery. It covers the south and southwestern part of Madadeni.
The 2021 local government elections: The ANC came close to losing this ward and eked out a win by 50 votes over Team Sugar. The IFP finished 223 votes behind the ANC.
The ANC carried the two most populous voting districts, as the IFP finished runner-up in both. Muzikayise Primary is where just more than half of the registered voters in the ward cast their ballot. Here the ANC beat the IFP by 100 votes and Team Sugar by 188 votes. The win was key for the ANC in retaining the ward.
Team Sugar won the smaller Simunye Cluster Hall voting district in Madadeni F by a landslide. It beat the ANC by more than 240 votes and the IFP by 270.
The ANC lost more than half of its percentage support in the ward in 2016, when it won 64% of the vote, and the IFP came second with 19%. The EFF was third here in 2016 with 9%.
The by-election: The ward councillor resigned. The ANC, Team Sugar, the IFP and EFF were joined by TRUTH on the ballot. The voters’ roll grew by 5% between the local government elections and this election.
The IFP picked up its second ward of the night by more than 800 votes. It won all three voting districts. In Ward 19 it did not take many votes from the ANC, but much of Team Sugar and the EFF’s support. At the Simunye Cluster Hall the IFP surged from 15% to 70%, while Team Sugar collapsed from 59% to 14%, losing 75% of its support in the ward. It ended up tying with the EFF for third place.
Poll: 44% (46%)
Ward 23 (Madadeni C ) Newcastle, Amajuba: IFP 64% (17%) ANC 13% (23%) Team Sugar 9% (22%) Ind-Zulu 6% EFF 3% (10%) Ind-Mwali 3% (12%)
The setting: This ward is also east of Newcastle. Ward 21 is north and northwest of the Madadeni centre.
The 2021 local government elections: The ANC bested Team Sugar here by 40 votes and the IFP by 137 votes. The victory was wider on the PR ballot where the ANC prevailed by 235 votes over Team Sugar and 242 over the IFP.
The ward ballot is used as a mode of comparison here since independent candidate Prince Mwali is back on the ballot. He finished fourth here in 2021 with 12% of the vote. Another independent candidate who was on the ballot in 2021 finished in sixth place with 8%. The ANC was affected more by the independents than Team Sugar or the IFP.
The ANC won three of the four voting districts on both the ward and PR ballots. Team Sugar won the second-most populous voting district on both ballots.
In 2016, the ANC won 56% of the ward vote, with Prince Mwali getting 21%. The IFP finished third with 12% and the EFF fourth with 9%.
The by-election: The by-election took place because of the resignation of the councillor. The ANC, Team Sugar, IFP and Mwali were joined on the ballot by another independent candidate. There was a 5% growth in the voters’ roll.
The IFP won its third ward here, beating the ANC by more than 1,180 votes. It took votes from the ANC, Team Sugar, the EFF and veteran independent candidate Prince Mwali. The party won more than 70% of the vote in two of the four voting districts. In 2021, the IFP only won in excess of 20% of the vote in one of the voting districts. The party made large inroads in all parts of the ward.
Poll: 46% (43%)
New Newcastle Council Composition: The IFP is now the largest party in the Newcastle council. The new seat allocation in the 67-seat council is: IFP 22 (19) ANC 18 (21) EFF 8 Team Sugar 7 DA 5 Action SA 3 FF+ 1 NFP 1 PA 1 ATM 1. The ruling coalition has 38 of the 67 seats now. The IFP has now won four consecutive seats off the ANC in Newcastle in 2024.
Ward 6 (KwaMophumula Enbuyeni) in uMshwati, uMgungundlovu: ANC 74% (70%) IFP 24% (21%) EFF 2% (3%) TRUTH <1%
The setting: Ward 6 is a rural ward comprising villages south and southeast of the uMshwati seat of power, Wartburg. The ward sits above the uMngeni River and below Trust Feed and Windy Hill. uMgungundlovu is the second-most populous district in KwaZulu-Natal. It includes the provincial capital Pietermaritzburg, as well as iMpendle and Howick.
The local government elections: The ANC won Ward 6 by a landslide with 70% of the voters’ support. It won five of the six voting districts, including taking more than 95% in two of them. The IFP won a single district.
The ANC won an outright majority in uMshwati but lost ground to the EFF. It won 16 of the 27 available seats. In 2016 it won 20. The EFF replaced the IFP as the official opposition in uMshwati, bagging four seats, up from the single seat it won in 2021. The IFP lost a seat in uMshwati, declining from four seats to three. The DA won two, with a provincial party, the Abantu Batho Congress (ABC), and the Patriotic Alliance (PA) sharing the remaining two.
In 2016, the ANC won 82% of the vote in the ward, with the IFP getting 10% and the EFF 1%.
The by-election: The councillor died from an illness. The largest three parties in uMshwati were joined on the ballot by TRUTH. The voters’ roll grew by 3% between the 2021 local government elections and the by-election.
The result was very similar to 2021. The ANC will feel the most satisfied by this outcome. It won six out of the seven voting districts, with the IFP holding the same voting district it won in the last election. The ANC knows that uMgungundlovu is the second-most vote-rich district in the province and that it will need to take the momentum from this district to the entire province for the national and provincial elections.
Poll: 45% (54%)
Gauteng
Ward 16 (Vereeniging Arcon Park) in Emfuleni, Sedibeng: ANC 38% (38%) PA 33% (14%) DA 27% (35%) EFF 2% (4%) CSM (<1%) TRUTH <1%
The setting: Ward 16 has three distinct parts. Ramaphosa is the ANC stronghold in the ward. This informal settlement has been instrumental in the ANC winning this ward in the past two elections here. Arcon Park is a DA stronghold and Rus-ter-Vaal is the PA’s domain.
The ward is south of Vereeniging, between the area of Duncanville and the suburb of Roshnee. It is next to the R82 regional road which links Vereeniging with Midvaal.
Emfuleni is the most populous local municipality in South Africa. It is part of Sedibeng, the southern district of Gauteng, which extends to Heidelberg and also includes Meyerton.
The 2021 local government election: The ANC beat the DA by 138 votes, while the DA received 1,036 more than the PA. The FF+ finished a distant fourth, well behind the PA with 5%. The EFF was sixth. The Mmusi Maimane-backed New Horizon Movement (NHM) obtained 2%.
The ANC’s loss of 13 seats saw it lose its outright majority in Emfuleni as it won 38 of the 90 seats. This was one of the few municipalities where the DA grew in 2021. It won 24 seats, up from 21 in 2016. The EFF grew by three seats to finish on 14. The FF+ made large strides, growing from two seats to six. The Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC) and a local party, the Community Solidarity Association (CSA), won two each. The PA, African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) and two local parties, the NHM and Vaal Alternative Alliance Lekgotla (VAAL), won single seats. The ANC formed an unstable coalition with the backing of most of the smaller parties.
The by-election: The ward councillor died. The ANC saw the DA, PA and EFF throw their hats into the ring. A local party, CSM leader and mayoral committee member Jonas Radebe also stood in the ward. The voters’ roll grew by 5%.
The ANC defied the Gauteng naysayers and matched its 2021 haul to retain a key ward in this Gauteng municipality. The win means the coalition will keep control of the municipality.
The ANC won the ward by winning the turnout battle: 60% of registered voters turned out in Ramaphosa, while 57% turned out in Rus-Ter-Vaal. Only 30% of registered voters made it to the polls in the DA stronghold of Arcon Park.
The ANC beat the PA by 219 votes through the slight turnout differential and the ability to get respectable chunks of votes in Rus-Ter-Vaal and Arcon Park.
It also won Ramaphosa by a landslide, taking 90% of the vote, with the PA, EFF and DA far off the pace.
The PA will be very happy with its second-place finish. It has made a deep impact in another ward where it was not traditionally very strong.
The DA will be concerned by its further decline in Rus-Ter-Vaal but most importantly by the subdued turnout in Arcon Park. If the party had come close to matching the turnout of Rus-Ter-Vaal it could have won this ward. The low turnout in Arcon Park saw it fall to third place.
Poll: 45% (53%)
North West
Ward 17 (Makapanstad One & Ten) Moretele, Bojanala: ANC 76% (71%) EFF 22% (17%) TRUTH 2%
The setting: This ward is close to the Limpopo and Gauteng borders. Ward 17 is north of Soshanguve and Pretoria, just left of the Carousel Hotel and the N1 national road.
Read more in Daily Maverick: Zuma’s MK party snatches votes from ANC, IFP in fierce Zululand contest as it gives big parties another huge fright
Moretele formed part of the former Bophuthatswana homeland during apartheid. Setswana is the most widely spoken language in the municipality. The seat of power is in Makapanstad. It forms part of the Bojanala District, the platinum belt of the province. This is the most populous district in the province and includes Rustenburg and Brits.
The 2021 local government elections: The ANC won more than 70% of the vote in the election. It swept all six voting districts. The EFF won more than 20% in one of them. The DA was third here in 2021 with 7%. The 2021 returns for the ANC, DA and EFF were very similar to the 2016 result in the ward.
Read more in Daily Maverick: 2024 elections
The ANC won 35 of the 52 seats for a comprehensive win in Moretele. It did, however, lose three. The EFF remained the official opposition with nine seats, up one from its 2016 total. The DA lost half of its seats, finishing on two. Forum 4 Service Delivery (F4SD) won two, with a regional party, Agenda to Citizenry Governors, Defenders of the People (DOP) and the African Independent Congress (AIC) winning one each.
The by-election: The ward councillor died from natural causes. The ANC and EFF were joined by TRUTH on the ballot. The voters’ roll grew by 6%.
The ANC won this ward by a landslide, beating the EFF by more than 880 votes. The ANC is on an impressive run in the Bojanala district. It could well be argued that the impenetrable firewall it has in the Eastern Cape and Limpopo now extends to Bojanala. The district will be key for the party in the national elections and the latest result reinforces its dominance here.
Poll: 40% (43%)
The next round of by-elections will be on 24 April when there will be three in Gauteng, three in KwaZulu-Natal, three in the Western Cape, two in the Eastern Cape and one each in Limpopo, North West and the Northern Cape. DM
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The analysis is fairly superficial (understandably so). I would be interested to hear thoughts of others who may have a clearer understanding of what drove the IFP successes. There are however very clear – and deeply depressing – takeaways from Emfuleni Ward 16. The ward consists of 3 areas – a “White area” (Arcon Park); a “Black area” (Ramaphosa) and a “Coloured Area” (Rus-Ter-Vaal). And so the voting pattern reflects that Whites vote DA, Blacks ANC and, increasingly, Coloureds PA. It seems that the so-called Coloured population is increasingly joining the identity politics bandwagon, ignoring the obvious opportunism of the PA, which seeks to drive identity politics for its own ends. The DA, in line with its commitment to non-racialism, nominated a coloured female candidate. Very honourable, but it backfired. The white people of Arcon Park who would have turned out in great numbers to support a white Afrikaner, stayed at home. And the voters in Rus-Ter-Vaal chose to vote for the “coloured party” rather than the non-racial party, in so doing handing the ward back to the unquesstionably corrupt, incompetent ANC. In short, a microcosm of current South African politics. The “non-racial democratic South Africa”, the “Rainbow Nation” ideals lie in tatters. The overwhelming majority of the population is addicted to identity politics.
Surprising how many people vote for the Patriotic Alliance led by a criminal without values, and expect that once people see them for who they are they’ll be very disappointed.
Indeed Kel, the PA is after tenders and to give out jobs
The analysis is fairly superficial (understandably so, given the results are so fresh). I would be interested to hear thoughts of others who may have a clearer understanding of what drove the IFP successes. There are however very clear – and deeply depressing – takeaways from Emfuleni Ward 16. The ward consists of 3 areas – a “White area” (Arcon Park); a “Black area” (Ramaphosa) and a “Coloured Area” (Rus-Ter-Vaal). And so the voting pattern reflects that Whites vote DA, Blacks ANC and, increasingly, Coloureds PA. It seems that the so-called Coloured population is increasingly joining the identity politics bandwagon, ignoring the obvious opportunism of the PA, which seeks to drive identity politics for its own ends. The DA, in line with its commitment to non-racialism, nominated a coloured female candidate. Very honourable, but it backfired. The white people of Arcon Park who would have turned out in great numbers to support a white Afrikaner, stayed at home. And the voters in Rus-Ter-Vaal chose to vote for the “coloured party” rather than the non-racial party, in so doing handing the ward back to the unquesstionably corrupt, incompetent ANC. In short, a microcosm of current South African politics. The “non-racial democratic South Africa”, the “Rainbow Nation” ideal lies in tatters. The overwhelming majority of the population is addicted to identity politics.
Great analysis. Thanks
Great to see the ANC and EFF crashing out in KZN!!! I suspect the ANC will lose even more votes to the MK. Just crazy that the ANC retain their dominance in other wards. Limpopo is one of the poorest areas of SA. Beyond belief that anyone still votes for them.
Nice to see the EFF tumbling down a steep decline in voter confidence and support. Hopefully due to their looting of VBS bank and the dishing out of crooked tenders by H.R.H Julius Malema. The EFF never credits its supporters with any intelligence and its coming back to bite them.
We are seeing the (re)birth of Zulu Nationalism – led by the IFP and the Zuma faction/MK Party, respectively.
To those with memories of the civil war in Natal (between the IFP & ANC) in the lead up to the 1994 Elections, this will be most troubling. More recently, the 2021 Riots were a stark reminder of what could go wrong in KZN and how quickly it could happen.
Most will not recall that Zuma was the peacemaker, who brought the warring factions in KZN together, and prevented a greater conflagration. This time, he is the chief violence monger (using MK as his mouthpiece)…
Extremely concerning developments, indeed.
Proof that rural KZN is still zulu not like the bigger cities and metros that have had MASS IMPORTS of anc ,even being BUSSED in and then making huge “squatter” settlements,like in the western cape (mostly out of eastern cape).
Wow, you made it through a whole comment without being racist. I guess there’s hope …